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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




Rt. Rev. Alexander MacDonald, D. D. 



STRAY LEAVES 

OR 

TRACES of TRAVEL 



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BY 

RT. REV. ALEX. MacDONALD, D.D. 

BISHOP OF VICTORIA, B. C. 




NEW YORK 
CHRISTLA.N PRESS ASSOCIATION 



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:5 



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SOLD FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THB FAITH : 
PRICE, $1.00. 



Copyright 

BY 

CHRISTIAN PRESS ASSOCIATION 

PUBLISHING CO. 

1914 



FEB 2419)5 

©CI,A397134 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

The Sound of Another Sea 7 

The Diary of a Pilgrim 9 

On the misty Atlantic 16-24 

London and Paris 25-36 

Paray le Monial 37-43 

Geneva, Berne, Interlaken 48-53 

Milan and Venice 54 

Rome 55-58 

Florence and Genoa 59-63 

Lourdes 64-71 

Jottings of a Trip in Scotland 72-95 

Rome— A Christmas Reminiscence 96-104 

The Roses of Assisi 105-107 

From New York to Naples 108-130 

From Naples to Cairo 131-140 

Through Spain 141-154 

Lourdes Revisited 155-160 

A Few More Stray Leaves and Traces.... 161-170 



TO 

MY FELLOW PILGRIMS. 



THE SOUND OF ANOTHER SEA 

Breaks upon mine ear 

The sound of another sea, 
Linking far with near — 

That far how near to me! 

Echoes out of the past, 

Wave-sounds from the shore, 

Woven in dreams at last 
Of days that are no more; 

Days that ebbed away 

By the side of another sea, 

When Hfe was young and gay. 
And all its ways were free. 
— Victoria, B. C, January i, 1910. 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 




Wednesday, June 2, 1900 

E leave Montreal in a great downpour 
of rain — a perfect deluge. In spite 
of the rain, there are many gathered 
on the pier to see us off. There is mutual wav- 
ing of handkerchiefs, and exchange of fare- 
wells. The rain descends in torrents, type and 
token of God's manifold blessings, so at least 
we pilgrims are fain to look upon it. x\s our 
ship frees herself from her moorings, and 
glides into the stream, one fond pilgrim is 
overheard remarking that Montreal is weeping 
over our departure. And such copious tears as 
they are, too! 

Last evening at eight, we all met at the Ca- 
thedral, St. James's, to assist at Pontifical 
Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The 
great church, modelled on St. Peter's at Rome 
— one-half of its length and one-eighth of its 
9 



10 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

cubic contents — was thronged. The Arch- 
bishop gave the Benediction, and afterwards 
from his throne addressed the pilgrims in 
French. He looked every inch of him a 
Bishop, and spoke with great dignity and 
sweetness, in a rich, clear voice. He seems 
well fitted to rule the Church of God in Mary's 
City — the great Catholic city of Montreal, 
which, with its grand churches, its splendid 
educational and charitable institutions, makes 
the pilgrim prouder of his Faith and of his 
country. 

We reach Quebec at 7 p. m. Carriages — 
cabs, caleches, and vehicles of all sorts — are in 
readiness to convey the pilgrim party to the 
Chapel of the Ursulines. Here for the first 
time in Canada Mass was offered in honour of 
the Sacred Heart. The Ursulines of Quebec 
were founded by the Blessed Mary of the In- 
carnation — the first religious foundation in 
Canada. They are a cloistered Order. From 
behind their gratings the nuns sing, in their 
sweet voices, the Benediction Service, which is 
preceded by a stirring address in French to the 
pilgrims. At nine we are back on board. 
There are ringing cheers from the shore, and 
hearty cries of bon voyage. On the ship, many 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 11 

of the pilgrims join in singing a French chan- 
son, with its lively chorus, " Bon soir, mes 
amis, bon soir ! " Scarcely has the last note 
died away when the ship's bugler breaks out in 
the familiar strains of Auld Lang Syne. We 
slip our moorings, and are off. 

Down the river we glide swiftly in the still- 
ness of the night. On either bank is a fine 
stretch of fertile land studded with picturesque 
villages, and dotted with the houses of les 
habitants. Now it lies as if asleep, wrapped 
in the mantle of night. We see but in shadowy 
outline the Laurentian hills, rising out of the 
darkness. What a majestic river is this St. 
Lawrence! There is nothing like it in Amer- 
ica — in all the wide world. The scenery on 
the Hudson is very picturesque in places, and 
somewhat more varied, perhaps. But one 
misses there the fine expanse of open country, 
with its setting of mountains, and the river 
itself lacks the breadth and grandeur of the St. 
Lawrence. 



la THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

Pentecost Sunday, June 3. 

Nine or ten pilgrims have joined us at Que- 
bec. We are now ninety-two in all, including 
twenty-three priests. There is also another 
priest on board, who is not a pilgrim. It is the 
feast of Pentecost, and all the priests say 
Mass. There are Masses all the morning at 
two altars — such altars as men hastily im- 
provise on board ship — from 4.30 to 10. The 
space between decks, forward of the saloon, 
has been turned into a chapel. Around about 
most of the pilgrims have their staterooms. 
At the seven o'clock Mass, celebrated by 
Father Pichon, S. J., director of the French 
section of the pilgrimage, the Veni Creator 
is sung with fine effect. Some of these French 
Canadian priests and several of the lay pil- 
grims, too, have splendid voices, trained in the 
music of the Church. 

In the afternoon we assemble in our chapel 
to sing the vespers of the day. Several of the 
lay pilgrims, men and women, lend their voices, 
and the ship resounds with the strains of the 
divine psalmody, the Veni Creator, and the 
Magnificat. What fine voices these French 
Canadians have, and how well they know the 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 13 

chant of the Church! Even the lay pilgrims 
sing the psalms and hymns in Latin, recite 
with us the Litany of Loreto in Latin, and 
seem to understand every word of what they 
sing or say. 

In the evening at eight there is service in 
English. We sing two hymns: — Nearer My 
God to Thee, and, Come Holy Ghost. Many 
of the French priests and lay pilgrims join us 
in singing. Father Kavanagh, S. J., director 
of the English-speaking pilgrims, gives an in- 
struction on the mission and work of the Holy 
Ghost. This is followed by the Rosary in 
English, and Night Prayers in French. Every 
day we say the Rosary together, in French at 
3.30 p. m., and in English at 8.30. Every day, 
too, hymns are sung to our Blessed Lady, the 
Ave Maris Stella and her own canticle of the 
Magnificat being our favourites. 

All day long we steam down the St. Law- 
rence, hugging the southern bank. Early in 
the afternoon, the mountains of St. Anne are 
seen in the distance. They rise to a height of 
from two to three thousand feet, back of the 
hills that border on the river. Their summits 
and shoulders are white with snow. It forms 
a pleasing contrast to the blue of the river, and 



14 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

the green of the fields that lie at their feet. 
By this time all trace of tears has been wiped 
away from the face of the June sky, which 
smiles benignantly upon us. It is glorious 
weather. 



Monday, June 4. 

We have passed Gaspe, and are in the Gulf. 
To the south, Bird Rock is dimly seen. Our 
passenger list — already a long one — has re- 
ceived an addition during the night. Two 
birds, the smaller a sparrow, boarded the ship, 
most likely before we were yet fairly away 
from land. They are objects of much interest 
to their fellow-passengers. The larger bird, 
which the sailors take to be " a howl " (as one 
of them expresses it), proves, on closer and 
more careful scrutiny, to be a hawk. Jack- 
tar is not an ornithologist. His acquaintance 
with the feathery tribe seems to be confined to 
a few aquatic birds, such as seagulls and 
Mother Carey's chickens. As for land birds, it 
is probable that he doesn't even " know a hawk 
from a handsaw," much less from " a howl." 

The presence of the birds on board gives 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 15 

rise to not a little speculation. Why hath the 
sparrow left its cosy nest and the hawk its home 
on the dry land, to roam over this waste of 
waters? Some say that the birds are stealing 
a free passage to Newfoundland. Others, 
sagely taking into account how ill-assorted the 
pair are, reach a more likely solution of the 
puzzling problem. The hawk, they say, sal- 
lied forth in the early dawn to find itself a 
breakfast. The sparrow was already abroad 
on similar mission bent. Chased by the pirate 
of the air, and having a natural dislike to be- 
come food for its hungry pursuer, instead of 
getting something to appease its own hunger, 
it sought refuge on the passing ship, closely 
followed by its foe. As we near the coast of 
Newfoundland the birds leave us and fly land- 
ward. But whether the smaller was inside 
the larger bird, when land was reached, is still 
matter for speculation to the other passengers 
of the Vancouver. 

By 10.30 a. m. we are abreast of Cape Ray. 
As we steam by Channel, otherwise known as 
Port Basque, we descry the massive hulk of 
the Elder-Dempster liner, Montpellier, wrecked 
here some weeks ago. Even the good ship 
Vancouver might be cast away on these cruel 



16 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

rocks, as was her sister ship, the Chicago, on 
the rocks of Kinsale. This is the thought that 
comes to one's mind as one gazes on the 
stranded ship. But the smiHng June sky, 
radiant with sunshine, chases it quickly away, 
and we breathe a prayer to the heart of Him 
who rules the wind and the waves. 

We are now fairly at sea, and our ship has 
made her first bow to the Atlantic rollers. 
This token of homage old Neptune claims, nay 
compels, from every ship that presses upon his 
bosom and feels the throbbing of his mighty 
heart. And full many a one of those who go 
down to the sea in ships, is, in like manner, 
made to pay tribute, and never a one but 
grudges the payment. But the theme is too 
painful to dwell upon. 



Tuesday, June 5. 

A little before noon Cape Race is on our lar- 
board quarter, and in an hour or two more we 
catch our last glimpse of Terra Nova. The 
weather is still fine, and the sea comparatively 
smooth. At 9 p. m. a large number of the pas- 
sengers gather in the saloon to hear a lecture 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 17 

on the causes that led to the war in South 
Africa. The lecture is by the Rev. Mr. Philips, 
an Anglican minister, who has spent seven 
years as missionary among the blacks and half- 
breeds of the Transvaal. He arraigns the 
Boer Government severely for its treatment of 
the natives. The truth of what he says is 
confirmed by Father Kavanagh, in seconding 
the motion for a vote of thanks at the close of 
the lecture. He remembers quite well when a 
boy at Stonyhurst hearing the Jesuit Fathers, 
returned from South Africa, recount what they 
saw and heard of the oppression of subject 
races by the Boers. " The tale they then told," 
he says, "has been retold here to-night." 
Precisely at ii o'clock the sound of the whistle 
warns us that we have at last run into the in- 
evitable fog. The dismal tooting is kept up 
at intervals of one or two minutes during the 
rest of the night. 

3|C })C ^ 



Wednesday, June 6. 

A good deal of motion in the ship; fewer 
passengers at the breakfast table. Still Masses 
are celebrated from 5.30 to 8, and several of 



18 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

the priests and lay pilgrims receive Holy Com- 
munion. In the afternoon, fogs again steal 
upon us. They gather around our ship, these 
mists of the mighty Atlantic, and envelop her 
as with a shroud. They come and go at inter- 
A^als during the afternoon, forcing us to slow 
down and at times come to a standstill, so great 
is the danger of collision with an iceberg or an 
incoming ship. There is nothing for it but to 
wait for the fog to lift with such patience as 
one can command. We pace the deck, or 
withdraw to our staterooms and there listen 
idly to the murmur of the waves as they beat 
against the ship, or brood on the mystery of 
the sobbing sea. 



Thursday, June 7. 

From noon yesterday till noon to-day we 
have covered 316 nautical miles, and are now 
a little more than half way across from Que- 
bec to Liverpool. The log reads at noon: 
Day, 7; lat., 30.06 N. ; long., 38.36; distance 
run, 316 miles. Remarks: Moderate winds, 
choppy sea. The reader will please bear in 
mind that this is from a ship's log, and that 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 19 

the " remarks " are to be understood in a 
strictly nautical sense. These " moderate " 
winds of ours would pass on shore for some- 
thing between a very stiff breeze and a moder- 
ate gale. And as for "choppy " seas, the At- 
lantic is not exactly a pOnd, though sometimes 
irreverently described as such by the fellow 
who has never crossed it, and this choppy sea 
makes our big ship reel and tumble about like 
a man slightly more than " half seas over." 
There is a deal of sickness in consequence. 
Some are unable to leave their beds. Others 
manage to crawl on deck, but only to lie there 
in chairs, silent and sullen, or mope about with 
a most woe-begone appearance. Even your 
genial rover of the seas, who has been across a 
score of times and assures you that he is not 
the least bit sick, is not half so gay and talk- 
ative as he was yesterday and the day before. 
You see there are degrees and stages of seasick- 
ness, and one passes through a great variety of 
less or more painful experiences before the last 
stage is reached. Over that final act of the 
nautical drama (which to the heartless onlooker 
is too often comedy, but to the chief actor, or 
rather sufferer, is in the last degree tragic) we 
willingly let the curtain fall. Many drink sea- 



20 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

water, glass after glass of it, and believe that it 
relieves them, or keeps them from falling sick, 
as the case may be. I fancy I can hear some 
one say as he reads this that the remedy is 
worse than the disease. But I am quite sure 
that the one who says so has never been seasick 
— perhaps never been to sea — in his life. 



Friday, June 8. 

This morning, in spite of the rolling of the 
ship, Masses were said and several of the pil- 
grims received Holy Communion. There are 
but few English pilgrims ; including cleric and 
lay, not more than a dozen out of the ninety- 
two. I say English rather than English-speak- 
ing, and in contradistinction to French, as 
many of the French pilgrims speak English 
fluently. 

There is little to break the monotony of a 
sea voyage. One day is just like another. 
You wake in the morning, rise, go through the 
same little round, turn in at night. Each day 
you seem to be just where you were the day 
before. The same voices call out to you 
" from the vasty deep." The same sea-waves 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 21 

lift their crested heads, shake their flowing 
manes, and sport and gambol in all the wild 
abandon of their unbridled freedom. And 
your vision is ever bounded by the same nar- 
row horizon. Anything is welcome that breaks 
this sameness, the passing ship, or even the sea- 
gull that wings its way over the water. We 
have met few ships. The smoke of a steamer 
— of two of them, indeed, — was descried yes- 
terday morning, and about sundown a big ship 
under shortened sail was seen beating her way 
to windward. 

Saturday, June 9. 

One pilgrim, who has been well enough up 
till now, is so squeamish to-day that he dare 
not write even half a dozen lines for fear of 
consequences. This " leaf," therefore, is all 
but blank. 

* * * 

Trinity Sunday, June 10. 

The sea still runs " choppy." It has been 
our worst night since we came on board — 
** rocked in the cradle of the deep," but with 



22 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

no gentle hand. The rocking continues this 
morning, and Mass is said by Father Pichon 
and one or two other priests under considerable 
difficulties. In the afternoon vespers are sung 
in the saloon, and in the evening, after the 
Rosary, there is a sermon in English by the 
Rev. Father Sloan, Pastor of Fallowfield, in 
the diocese of Ottawa. This is a very distress- 
ing day to many of the passengers. There is 
longing for the repose of smooth waters, and 
from four in the afternoon eager eyes are scan- 
ning the distant horizon, in front of us, for a 
sight of land. At six it is sighted — a vast rock 
in the form of a cathedral, known as the " Skel- 
ligs,*' and by ten we are steering straight for 
the Fastnet Light which flashes its welcome 
rays upon us at intervals of a few seconds. 
The anger of ocean is fast subsiding, the stars 
are out, and the Irish moon looks down upon 
us from a cloudless sky. It is the feast of the 
Most Holy Trinity, and to-night, as in all the 
nights since His creative hand hung those orbs 
in space, " The heavens proclaim His glory, 
and the firmament of heaven shows forth the 

work of His hands." 

* * * 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 



Monday, June i i . 

I have spoken o^ Mass^^s said under diffi- 
culties. There are difficulties and difficulties. 
While I was serving Father Kavanagh's Mass 
at 8 o'clock this morning, voices pitched in a 
high key came from a stateroom hard by. 
This is what the voices said — needless to say 
the owners were neither pilgrims nor of the 
household of the faith : 

Male voice : " Open the porthole." 

Female voice, from an adjoining stateroom, 
shrill, as if in anger: "Do you command? 
Are you *boss'?" (The bedroom steward 
alone may open the porthole). 

Male voice : " Mine is open." 

Female voice (sarcastically) : " Don't fall 
through." 

We are now in St. George's Channel. On 
our right, but not in view, is the coast of 
Wales. On our left the coast of Ireland is 
plainly visible. With a pair of glasses we can 
see cottages, churches, and the green, green 
fields of Erin. We shall be in Liverpool about 
ten o'clock to-night. There I will mail this 
batch of '' leaves " which have at least the merit 



24 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

of continuity. Others to follow will neces- 
sarily be scattered and disconnected — stray 
leaves blown about by every wind of travel. 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 25 




Paris, Monday, June i8. 

E reached Liverpool a week ago to- 
day. It was about ten a. m. when 
we entered the Mersey, having 
been detained by fog for some time at the 
mouth of the river. The famous docks of 
the city, stretching for six miles on the 
left bank of the Mersey, as you enter, were 
lighted with electricity, presenting a brilliant 
spectacle. At ten the next morning we were 
on our way to London by the Great Western 
R. R., which runs through some of the finest 
parts of England. Rural England, at least 
what we have seen of it, is highly cultivated 
and very beautiful. The country traversed b) 
the Great Western trains, from Liverpool to 
London, is one vast park — great grassy plains 
on either hand, with here a river, and there oc- 
casionally a mountain, and everywhere rows 
of trim hedges and the majestic oaks of Old 
England. We pass through smoky Birming- 
ham, and from the railway catch a glimpse of 
the twin towers of Christ's Church, Oxford, 



26 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

both places fraught with reminders of the illus- 
trious Cardinal Newman. 

In London, we stay for the greater part of 
three days. Our hotel is hard by Westminster 
Abbey. We visit the famous abbey more than 
once, and each time with mingled feelings of 
admiration and sadness — admiration for the 
noble temple itself, and sadness for the change 
that has come over it, and the uses to which it 
is put. The hour is half -past ten in the morn- 
ing and the Canons of Westminster are chant- 
ing their office. Decorous and sweet is the 
music of their voices, but it grates upon the ear 
as one thinks of those old monks of St. Bene- 
dict, who so often here offered the Holy Sacri- 
fice, and made the vast edifice resound with far 
other and more solemn music in the centuries 
long gone by. Here rest the sainted bones of 
Edward the Confessor, in the magnificent 
shrine prepared for them by the founder of the 
abbey, Henry III, in the thirteenth century. 
Yonder is the tomb of the ruthless Cromwell, 
and a few steps beyond it, Charles Darwin, 
naturalist and agnostic, lies in death. Over 
against the monument of the martyred Mary 
Queen of Scots, rises that of her royal cousin 
and murderess, Elizabeth. The place is full of 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM n 

these painful contrasts, though fragrant still 
with memories of its glorious past — a past 
which, however, bids fair to renew itself, at 
least in a measure, for England and her peo- 
ple. Is it not a token of this " second spring "' 
that the Faith which built Westminster Abbey, 
and which people once fondly thought \vas 
dead and buried in England, past all hope of 
resurrection, is now building an even more spa- 
cious temple to the Most High, not many hun- 
dred yards from the historic abbey, the new 
Catholic cathedral of Westminster. 

Back of what was once the high altar of the 
old abbey is the Coronation Chair, with, be- 
neath it, the historic Stone of Scone, on which 
the Scottish Kings used to be crowned for long 
ages before the days of Bruce. Now the mon- 
archs of England sit in the chair on the day of 
their coronation. Queen Victoria sat in it 
twice, once when the diadem of the greatest 
empire of the earth was placed on her girlish 
brow — she was still in her teens — and a second 
time, sixty years after, on the occasion of her 
Diamond Jubilee. One other, more youthful, 
but of low degree, sat in the royal chair 
since — aye, and slept in it too, so our 
guide tells us. A boy from the neighbouring 



38 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

schools was dared by his mates to spend a night 
alone with the bones of the mighty dead, and 
the ghosts of the Royal Chapel. He did so, 
slept in the Coronation Chair, and boylike cut 
his name and the record of his nocturnal ex- 
ploit in the wood on which Royalty has been 
enthroned since the days of the First Edward. 
Many are the sights of London. But we 
pilgrims are not sightseers, though of course 
we do not travel with our eyes closed. Dur- 
ing the two or three days that we were in Lon- 
don, several places of historic interest were 
visited, among others the famous Tower. As 
for myself, I went not much about, having 
spent in all six days in London on the two for- 
mer occasions that I was in the city. I paid a 
visit to an old classmate of mine in the Propa- 
ganda, who is now Canon Gildea, rector of 
St. James's, in Spanish Place. From him I 
learned that there are altogether about one 
hundred Catholic churches in London, most of 
them somewhat small of size, and that they are 
so situated that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass 
is offered up every Sunday within ten minutes' 
walk of any Catholic home in the vast city. On 
the Feast of Corpus Christi I assisted at the 
Solemn Hig^h Mass and Procession of the 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 29 

Blessed Sacrament in the Brompton Oratory. 
The church of the Oratory is easily the finest 
Catholic church in London. It is modelled on 
the great church of St. Philip, in Rome, and 
is distinctly Roman in every detail. Here New- 
man preached those thrilling sermons which 
drew Thackeray away from his novel writing 
and Macaulay from some favourite haunt in 
the literary circles of the city. The echoes of 
that wondrous voice seem still to linger in the 
place. Newman's figure in white marble, 
larger than life, fronting the street that runs by 
the Oratory, arrests the steps of many a passer- 
by. 

Between England and France, the distance is 
not great, if you reckon it in miles, but it is 
leagues and leagues if you measure it by dif- 
ferences of race and national characteristics. 
The English Channel, with its swift tide and 
fretful sea, severs two entirely different peo- 
ples. We cross from Folkestone to Boulogne- 
sur-Mer. Boulogne is a quaint old-world 
town, and a favourite resort of tourists. We 
make but a short stay, and push on to Paris. 
Our way lies through an undulating country, 
well-wooded and well-watered, with here and 
there a great stretch of pasture-land, where 



30 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

flocks of sheep are grazing and shepherds with 
their dogs are keeping watch. This part of 
France does not appear to be as highly culti- 
vated as are the parts of -England that we 
have seen; but the scenery is more diversified. 
By ten o'clock at night the electric light on the 
summit of the Eiffel Tower is visible afar, 
and we know that we are nearing Paris. 

We arrived in Paris last Friday night. We 
leave it next Wednesday morning. What shall 
I say of the City on the Seine, the gay and bril- 
liant capital of France? I will say frankly that 
I don't like it — that I would rather live in Lon- 
don with its dullness and fog, than live in Paris 
with its gaiety and sunshine. Why? Well, 
perhaps because I am dull myself, at least in 
the sense of not being gay — certainly not be- 
cause I love the fog, for I do dearly love the 
blue sky and the light of the blessed sun. Per- 
haps, again, it is because I don't understand the 
French tongue or French ways as I understand 
the English tongue and English ways. But 
most of all, I think, what I dislike about Paris 
is its godlessness. The evidences of it are on 
every hand. The Londoner has at least the 
good sense to hide his irreligion, if he is irre- 
ligious. At any rate, he does not wear the 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 31 

badge of his irreligion in the streets. The 
Parisian, who is irreligious, parades his irre- 
h'gion and seems to glory in his shame. I have 
seen less of London than of Paris — too little 
of either, indeed, to enable me to form a just 
idea of their condition. But certainly the lat- 
ter city seems to be the more godless of the 
two. 

Religion there is in Paris, and piety, too, 
much more of it, I have no doubt at all, than 
there is in the city on the Thames. But it hides 
itself in church and home; the stranger in the 
streets sees little of it. Take the matter of Sun- 
day observance. Public opinion and the law in 
London make people respect, at least out- 
wardly, the Lord's Day; public opinion and the 
law in Paris make people do the very opposite, 
at least as far as the force of custom and ex- 
ample and the spur of business rivalry can 
bring this effect about. Last Sunday in Paris 
almost all the shops were open, and people went 
about their work as on an ordinary week day. 
Paris does not keep the Sunday, though many 
Parisians doubtless do. Is there no warrant 
for the inference that Paris has ceased to be 
Christian ? 

This is a land of contrasts, and Paris is em- 



32 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

phatically a city of contrasts. Piety and god- 
lessness, virtue and vice, are here more sharply 
contrasted than in any other city on earth. "If 
the devil reigns in Paris, God is, perhaps, better 
served there than anywhere else; good and 
evil alike find their supreme expression; 'tis 
Babylon and Jerusalem both." 

In the grand churches dwells the deepest 
piety ; godlessness is rampant without. We are 
in Notre Dame Sunday, during the Procession 
of the Blessed Sacrament. What a splendid 
spectacle ! The music how heavenly ! Boys 
with angel voices make the stately edifice ring 
with the grand old chant of the Church. 
Troops of boys and girls, the boys with lighted 
torches in their hands, the girls clothed in spot- 
less white and bearing great bunches of roses 
which shed their fragrance far, march in the 
long procession. At the end, the Eucharistic 
Lord, from His throne over the high altar, 
blesses the assembled multitude. It is all so 
solemn and so soulstirring. We pass out from 
the church, deeply moved. The street is almost 
blocked with worldly traffic, and men — two 
soldiers and two civilians — are playing cards 
under the very shadow of Notre Dame. 

Sunday morning, the pilgrims went in a body 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 33 

to Montmartre — the priests to say Mass, the 
lay pilgrims to hear Mass and receive Holy 
Communion. The basilica which the piety of 
Catholic France has erected to the Sacred 
Heart on Montmartre is truly a splendid struc- 
ture. Built on a lofty eminence, it dominates 
the city which seems to lie quite at one's feet. 
Five thousand boys from the seminaries of 
France received Holy Communion at Mont- 
martre that morning. As one watched tier 
after tier of them at the high altar eat of the 
Bread of Life, with every mark of piety and 
devotion, one felt that there was hope for the 
future of the Church in France. And yet at 
least to human seeming, how gloomy is the 
outlook! One of the lay pilgrims, a very de- 
vout French-Canadian, told me after we left 
Montmartre that morning of a talk he had with 
a Parisian matron the day before. She had 
two children — the regulation number, for in 
France, as statistics show, the deaths all but ex- 
ceed the births. She sent them to Mass, she 
said, though she did not go herself, remarking 
that no harm would come of their going. She 
sent them to the godless State school, because 
they would not get on so well in the world, 
she thought, if they went to the Christian 



34 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

Brothers' school. There is reason to fear that 
many of the mothers of France are to-day like 
this Parisian dame — solicitous about the things 
of this world, and neither knowing nor caring 
for the things that are above. 

At dinner, in the restaurant at Boulogne on 
Friday, only meat was served. We asked for 
fish, but could get none. At lunch, in our own 
hotel here at Paris the same evening, again no 
fish. True, the railway restaurant at Boulogne 
and the hotel at Paris cater to the travelling 
public. But do not the French themselves 
travel? And if, in travelling, they eat fish on 
Friday, will not fish be forthcoming when 
asked for? I have said that Paris does not 
keep the Sunday — at least the Sunday rest; I 
fear that France does not keep Friday, or keeps 
it but very indifferently. I speak as one less 
wise and under correction. But putting this 
and that together, I cannot but conclude that 
there is a dreadful decay of faith in France. It 
does not seem possible that the France of the 
Catholic Missions, the France of our Lady of 
Lourdes, will be lost to the Church. But if she 
is to be saved to God and Church, it will be so 
as by fire. Another chastisement, cutting 
deeper into the nation's life than that of 1870, 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 35 

must first bring to her knees, and to the very 
dust in penance, the Eldest Daughter of the 
Church. 

I am at the end of my chapter, and not a 
word about the Exposition. I have visited 
the grounds but once, and then viewed them 
from the Eiffel Tower, midway to the top. 
The buildings, which stand on both banks of 
the Seine, are certainly very grand. They 
seem to be more spacious, upon the whole, 
than were those of the Chicago Exposition. 
But they do not stand by themselves and 
apart, as was the case in Chicago ; you do not 
get one impression of them, so to say; nor is 
the sight so beautiful as was that of the White 
City on the shores of Lake Michigan. The 
view to be had from the Eerris Wheel at 
Chicago was, I think, finer than that which 
you get to-day from the Eiffel Tower at 
Paris. I am speaking only of what is to be 
seen of the Exposition from without. But 
what of the Paris Eair from within? That 
you must learn, if at all, from some one else. 
I paid but a flying visit to one of the build- 
ings, and saw a variety of things of which 
I have now but a very confused notion. I 
have no faculty for seeing things, as your en- 



36 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

thusiastic sightseer has, and can find no sort of 
pleasure in the process. To me it is all a 
weariness of spirit — and a weariness of the 
flesh into the bargain. Non satiatur oculus 
videndo, says the Wise Man — the eye is not 
sated with seeing. To which one may add, 
in view of the special circumstances of the 
case, sed f atigatur corpus ambulando — ^but the 
body is fatigued with walking. 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM SI 




Geneva, Sunday, June 24, 1900. 

E left Paris last Wednesday morning, 
and arrived at Paray le Monial a 
little before six in the afternoon. 
All day we traversed a land of great fertility, 
rich in grain fields, for the most part open 
and level, in places picturesque. The sea- 
son here is at least six weeks earlier than at 
home. Already the grain is ripe or fast 
ripening in the fields, and the people are busily 
at work making their hay and gathering in 
the harvest. 

Paray le Monial is situated on the banks of 
a small stream, in the Department of Loire-et- 
Saone, in the very heart of France. It is a 
town of not more than 4,000 inhabitants, 
quiet with the quietude of all country places, 
quaint with the quaintness of almost all of 
the old-world towns. No smoke of factories 
darkens its sky, no sound of worldly traffic is 
heard in its streets. You hear instead the 
song of birds in the morning, the pealing of 
bells, and all day long the pilgrim's hymn. A 



38 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

deep peace, a sweet and restful tranquility, 
broods on the place which the Prince of Peace, 
the Lord of the Sacred Heart, has chosen for 
His sanctuary. 

The Chapel of the Sacred Heart, attached 
to the Convent of the Visitation, must seem 
commonplace enough to the ordinary traveller. 
It is small of size, and, as seen from without, 
very plain, very unpretentious. Within is a 
wealth of votive offerings from every land. 
Consecrated banners, wrought in silk and gold 
and richly embroidered, are ranged around 
the walls, and the light of many lamps falls 
upon the high altar where Our Blessed Lord 
revealed His heart to the lowly Visitandine, 
and whence He still dispenses His grace. 

All day Thursday and far into the night 
pilgrims keep pouring in from all parts. All 
night long the Chapel is open, and the stream 
of incoming and outgoing pilgrims is as the 
flow and ebb of a mighty sea. At two in the 
morning of Friday, Feast of the Sacred Fleart, 
the Masses begin. They continue at all of the 
eight altars until ten, at most of them until 
twelve, yet not one-third of the priests in 
Paray le Monial with the great International 
Pilgrimage can say Mass this day in the 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 39 

sanctuary of the Sacred Heart. They must 
needs go elsewhere, to the basilica, to other 
churches or chapels. 

At ten o'clock Solemn High Mass is cele- 
brated in the basilica, the Vicar-General of 
Paris being the celebrant. The Bishop of 
Autun, Cardinal Perraud, occupies the throne 
on the gospel side, for Paray le Monial is in 
his jurisdiction. In the sanctuary are several 
prelates and dignitaries, among others Arch- 
bishop Corrigan of New York, and as many 
priests as can find standing room. The church 
is literally packed with pilgrims, yet many 
thousands have been unable to gain entrance. 
In the nave, directly in front of the main altar, 
are ranged the banners of the various pilgrim- 
ages, some thirty or forty in all — I cannot give 
the exact number. Hither they have been 
borne by pilgrim bands from all quarters of 
the globe, from many countries of Europe, 
from Asia, from Africa, from America, North 
and South, and from the islands of the far 
Pacific Ocean. Conspicuous among them is 
our own Canadian banner, with its almost life- 
size image of Our Lord revealing His Sacred 
Heart in the centre, and ranged along the bor- 
ders the heroic founders of the Church in 



40 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

Canada, Laval, Champlain, Maisonneuve, Bre- 
boeuf, Mary of the Incarnation, Marguerite 
Bourgeois, and the foundress of the Ursulines 
of Quebec. A little beyond is unfurled an- 
other American banner, which proudly claims 
a place here to-day by a right peculiarly its 
own. It is the banner of Catholic Ecuador, 
the Republic of the Sacred Heart. Inscribed 
on it, in letters of gold, which first were 
written in blood, are the words of the martyred 
President, Garcia Moreno, as he fell by the 
hand of the assassin, Iddios ne meure — God 
dies not. At the Credo all are on their feet, 
and the priests in the sanctuary and in all parts 
of the basilica pilgrim voices from many lands 
sing in unison the time-honoured Confession 
of the Faith " once delivered to the saints " — 
in the chant of the Church and in the language 
of the Church, the Creed of the Church 
Catholic and Apostolic. It is a most impres- 
sive and most solemn scene, one never to be 
forgotten. 

Thursday night the pilgrims made the Way 
of the Cross by torchlight in the great garden 
adjoining the basilica. The garden itself w^as 
brilliant with lights, and at each station the 
arch-priest attached to the basilica delivered a 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 41 

discourse in French, of some five or ten 
minutes. In the intervals between stations the 
vast multitude joined in singing the hymn of 
Catholic France, with its pleading refrain, 
Sauvez, Sauvez la France. On the afternoon 
of Friday the basilica was again packed to 
hear the sermon of Father Couper, one of the 
first preachers of France, and to assist at the 
International Act of Consecration to the Sa- 
cred Heart. It was indeed a red-letter day 
in the City of the Sacred Heart. From earliest 
dawn the streets were lined with pilgrims in 
picturesque costumes and gay with banners, 
the Papal colours and the banner of the Sacred 
Heart ever holding the place of honour. As 
the sun went down and darkness fell upon the 
scene, the celebration was brought to a close 
by a great torchlight procession through the 
streets. 

That night, in the hotel of the Sacred Heart 
hard by the Chapel of the Visitation, the Cana- 
dian pilgrims were introduced to General 
Charette, sometime leader of the Pontifical 
Zouaves, and Admiral Cuverville, of the 
French Navy. Both made short speeches 
brimful of Gallic fire, and of loyalty to the 
Sacred Heart and to Holy Mother Church. O 



42 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

that France had many such high-souled, God- 
fearing men among her leaders and coun- 
cillors ! 

There were many pilgrimages at Paray le 
Monial, and many people represented there. 
But it is quite safe to say that the pilgrimage 
which represented the Catholics of Canada cut 
the greatest figure and claimed the greatest 
share of attention. This it owed not to its 
numbers; numerically it was one of the small- 
est. Nor was it the rank or dignity of its mem- 
bers that won it a foremost place : it was made 
up of plain priests and humble lay people, 
many of them from the remote rural districts 
of the Province of Quebec. But the Catholics 
of France saw in the vast majority of the pil- 
grim band that gathered round the Canadian 
banner the descendants of the men and wo- 
men who went forth from France three cen- 
turies ago to found a new France on the banks 
of the St. Lawrence. And as they heard them 
sing their hymns in French to airs that have 
been familiar to generations of pious French- 
men, and saw how they still hold fast, with 
unswerving fidelity, the Faith of their Fathers, 
the Faith of Old France, their hearts went out 
to them as they went out to the members of no 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 43 

other pilgrimage there. Most of all was this 
made manifest yesterday morning as we 
gathered in the sanctuary at Paray le Monial 
to sing for the last time before leaving the 
hymn of the Canadian pilgrims. Mr. Rivet, 
organizer of the pilgrimage, who has a rich, 
strong and most musical voice, sang the solos, 
and all joined in the chorus. The emotion of 
many present found vent in tears, and copies 
of the hymn were afterwards eagerly sought 
for. This particular hymn, one of two, was 
composed while we were in London, by a 
French Canadian Sister who has entered a 
convent there. I subjoin a copy of it, with an 
English translation, which one who looks at it 
without reading might mistake for verse, but 
which is really only a rude rendering into 
English, line for line and almost word for 
word, of the original : 

Cantique des Pelerins Canadiens 
a Paray le Monial. 



44 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 



(AIR: PITIE, MON DIEU.) 

I. 

Des bords lolntains de la Nouvelle France, 
Du Canada, Maitre, nous accourons; 
O Roi des rois, a Vous notre allegeance. 
A votre Coeur, nous nous consacrons. 

Coeur adorable, 

Foyer d'amour, 

Le pays de I'erable 

Est a Vous sans retour. 



11. 



Peuples, debout ! le Maitre nous appelle, 
Rallions-nous autour du Sacre-Coeur; 
II f aut au monds une seve nouvelle : 
Allons tous boire aux sources du Sauveur. 

Coeur adorable, 

Nous voici tous, 

Nous venons, Coeur aimable, 

Chercher la vie en vous. 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 45 

III. 

Nos maux sont grands, nous sommes bien 

coupables, 
Mais Vous, mon Dieu, vous etes toujours 

bon; 
Vous avez fait les peuples guerissables, 
II leur suffit de Vous crier: Pardon! 

Coeur adorable, 

Qui nous aimez, 

A la terre coupable, 

Coeur divin, pardonnez. 

IV. 

Coeur de Jesus, que tous les coeurs soient 

votres, 
Au cher pays, en la France, en tous lieux! 
Par votre amour, unis les uns aux autres, 
Nous serons forts et nous serons heureux. 

Nous voulons etre 

A Vous, Jesus ; 
Prenez nos coeurs, bon Maitre, 
Et ne les rendez plus. 

V. 

Daignez benir notre chere Patrie, 

Tous nos foyers, nos Pretres, nos Pasteurs; 



46 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

Et que tou jours, de Jesus, de Marie, 
Les Canadiens soient loyaux serviteurs! 

Coeur adorable, 

Gardez tou jours 
Au pays de I'erable 
La foi des anciens jours. 

Hymn of the French-Canadian 
Pilgrims at Paray le Monial. 

From the shores of far New France, 

From Canada, Lord, we come; 

O King of Kings, we swear fealty to Thee, 

And to Thy Sacred Heart we consecrate our- 
selves. 

Adorable Heart, 
Fountain of Love, 
The Land of the Maple 
Is Thine forevermore. 



IL 



Hark, ye peoples ! the Master calls us, 
Let us rallly round His Sacred Heart. 
The world needs the sap of a new life; 
Let us all go and drink at the fountains of the 
Saviour. 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 47 

Adorable Heart, 
Behold us all here, 
We come, O loving Heart, 
To find life in Thee. 

III. 

Great are our sins, our souls are stained with 

guilt. 
But Thou, my God, Thou art ever merciful. 
In Thee is healing for the Nations; 
Enough that they cry out : Forgive ! 

Adorable Heart 

That lovest us ; 

Pardon, Heart Divine, 

The guilt-stained world. 

IV. 

Heart of Jesus, may all hearts be Thine, 

In our own dear country, in France, in every 

land! 
Bound together by the bonds of Thy love, 
We shall find strength and happiness. 

Thine, O Jesus, 

We would be; 

Take our hearts, dear Lord, 

And make them Thine for ever. 



48 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 



Deign to bless our dear Country, 
Our Homes, our Priests, our Bishops; 
And may Canadians ever be 
Faithful Servants of Jesus and Mary! 

Adorable Heart, 

Always conserve 

To the Land of the Maple 

The Faith of our Fathers! 
* * * 

We reached Geneva last night and are leav- 
ing to-morrow morning for Berne. Geneva 
is a beautiful city, situated at the head of the 
lake of the same name. The atmosphere is 
wonderfully clear here to-day and the sun 
shines out of a cloudless sky. Afar off — 
though it seems not far, it must be some score 
of miles away — the snowy summit of Mont 
Blanc is distinctly visible. All around are 
Alpine peaks. The city is full of historic in- 
terest. Here Calvin preached his gloomy 
creed and ruled with an iron rod. Here, too, 
the very opposite of Calvin i:i every way, that 
sweetest and most lovable of Saints, Francis 
of Sales, wielded episcopal authority over a 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 49 

devoted flock. His spirit seems to breathe in 
the peace and calm of this June day. One 
can even fancy that one hears the accents of 
his gentle voice calling his sheep away from 
earthly pastures to heavenly ones, guiding 
them ever onward to the Great Shepherd of 
the sheep, in the fold upon the everlasting 
hills. 



50 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 



Lucerne, Wednesday, June 27. 

^l^gjHE parts of Switzerland that are ca- 
1^^^ pable of cultivation seem to be even 
more fertile than the parts of France 
that we have passed through. Both the hay 
and grain crops are heavier, at least this year, 
and the vine thrives marvellously on the hill- 
sides of this beautiful and romantic land. For 
beautiful it is and romantic, this land of bright- 
blue skies, and snow-capped mountains, and 
leaping cataracts, and sylvan glades, and smil- 
ing valleys. 

We spent Sunday at Geneva, and stayed two 
or three hours at Berne Monday on our way 
to Interlaken. Berne is the national capital. 
Its most notable buildings are the Federal 
House of Parliament and the Lutheran Ca- 
thedral. The latter dates from the beginning 
of the 15th century, and to this day bears about 
it tokens of the Faith that first set it up. 
Berne is the German word for " bear." The 
city takes its name " de bellua caesa," as an 
old monument bears witness, from a bear hav- 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 51 

ing been slain on the site where it stands. 
Thence the bear is the emblem and heraldic 
decoration of the Swiss capital. You can't 
turn in any direction without running across 
the figure of a bear. The poor beast is drawn 
in every conceivable shape and tortured into 
every conceivable attitude. One is reminded 
of the fable of the Lion and the Man, as told 
by Newman. There are bears couchant, bears 
passant, and bears regardant. There are old 
bears and young bears, big bears and little 
bears, bears climbing trees, bears standing on 
their hind legs, bears hugging each other, and 
bears making faces at each other. And to 
crown all, the city maintains four huge live 
bears and several young ones in an enclosure 
about twelve feet below the level of the ground. 
They are shown to every visitor who crosses 
the stone bridge that spans the Aar river, on 
the banks of which Berne stands. 

Interlaken, as the name implies, is situated 
between two lakes. It is an ideal summer re- 
sort, a very paradise of tourists. It is hemmed 
in by mountains on every side. On the east, 
Jungfrau lifts her snowy summit to the skies. 
Jungfrau (pronounced yungfrau) is German 
for virgin. And a tall virgin she is, this 



62 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

Maiden of the Snows, ever holding her head 
erect some 13,000 feet above the level of the 
sea. She always wears her white mantle, and 
for apron a great glacier. On the evening of 
our arrival she had on a cap of cloud, and 
some time during the night further shrouded 
herself in a veil of mist. Nor would she lift it 
as we went away, eager though we were to 
catch a glimpse of her morning face. 

Between Interlaken and Lucerne the scenery 
is uninterruptedly grand. Mountain, lake, and 
Alpine river quickly succeed one another, but 
without sameness. The most remarkable feat- 
ure of this route is the over-mountain railway. 
The train climbs an Alpine hill from 1,200 to 
1,500 feet in height, and makes its way 
down on the other side. Our train was 
divided into three sections, each section of 
which was pulled by a powerful locomotive. 
The wheels revolve on cogs set in the rails. 
At one time the train is on the very edge of a 
precipice, with a sheer descent of several hun- 
dred feet; at another, an overhanging cliff 
threatens to fall down on top of it and smash 
it into atoms. Now it seems to be on the verge 
of dropping into a lake hundreds of feet be- 
low ; the next moment the dense Alpine forests 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 53 

hides even the heavens from one's view. It is 
a thrilling experience, and one feels a sense of 
relief once it is fairly over. 
* * * 



64 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 



Rome, July 6th, 1900. 

MT is more than a week since last I put 
pen to paper. We were then at Lucerne, 
amid the eternal hills. We are now in 
the Eternal City. Into this short space much 
has been crowded — too much even to touch on 
here or give in barest outline. There is the 
sublime scenery of the Alpine Passes between 
Lucerne and Como, with the passage through 
the great tunnel at St. Gothard's. There is 
Milan with its marvellous Duomo, *' a dream 
in marble," as some prose poet has pictured it. 
There is the vast plain of Lombardy, stretching 
for miles and miles from the foot of the Alps 
to the Mediterranean, the garden of Italy, as 
Italy is the garden of Europe. Then there is 
Venice, Queen of the Adriatic, the city of doges 
and of gondolas. The doges are dead; we 
visited the church where monuments in marble 
and in bronze enshrine their ashes and perpetu- 
ate all that now remains of their former great- 
ness — a fugitive and fitful memory. The gon- 
dolas are still there, with their graceful, swan- 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 55 

like shape and movement — just such as they 
were in the days when the RepubHc of Venice 
was mistress of the seas. There, again, is 
Padua, with its shrine of St. Anthony, whose 
incorrupt tongue still witnesses to the power 
with which this '' trumpet of the Gospel " her- 
alded Christ and Him crucified. There, too, is 
Loreto, with its Holy House, where the Word 
was made Flesh — a most gracious shrine. 
Lastly, as we hasten Romeward, midway be- 
tween Ancona and Rome, amid the Umbrian 
hills, yet another shrine draws us to itself — 
Assisi, where live the memories of St. Francis 
and the spirit of St. Francis — live, too, as 
fresh and fragrant as are the blood-bedewed 
roses that bloom on thornless bushes in his 
garden, where he fought the good fight against 
temptation and won for the men of all time the 
Pardon of the Portiuncula. 

Those of us who spent Wednesday in Assisi 
did not reach Rome until a late hour that night. 
Imagine our surprise and almost consternation 
when we were told that all the pilgrims were to 
be received in audience by the Holy Father 
at eleven the next (yesterday) morning. We 
had counted on being at least a day or two in 
Rome before the audience took place, and we 



56 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

were not ready. We ran about for two or 
three hours in the morning, buying medals, 
etc., to be blessed — I with no little difficulty, 
getting English gold for the cheques containing 
the Peter Pence offering of our diocese, some 
two thousand one hundred and fifty francs. 
By eleven o'clock we are at the Vatican, and 
half an hour afterwards Pope Leo enters 
the Sala Clementina, borne on a chair, amid 
the ' evivas ' of the assembled pilgrims. There 
are two pilgrimages, the Brazilian, ranged 
along one side of the great hall, and the Ca- 
nadian along the other. First the Pope re- 
ceives the Brazilians, then the Canadians. He 
is carried in his chair right around the hall, in 
front of the pilgrims who line the sides. To 
each he gives his hand to kiss; to each his 
blessing and some gracious token of tender- 
ness — a word, a smile; to all, at the close, the 
Apostolic Benediction. Pope Leo is of course 
changed since I saw him last, sixteen years 
ago; the white hair is scantier and whiter still, 
the lines on the face are deeper, the hands 
are more tremulous, the voice has lost its res- 
onance. But the light of the coal black eye 
is not dimmed, there is more of pathos in the 
voice, and the whole face has melted into ten- 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 5T 

derness. There has come into it a gentler and 
more winning look, which one likens to the 
mellowness of ripe fruit when it is ready to 
drop from the tree. This fruit is surely meet 
to be gathered, one says to oneself, yet none 
but the Master's hand may pluck it from the 
stem. 

The scene in the Sala Clementina, at the 
close of the audience, as the aged Pontiff 
blessed the pilgrims, I will not attempt to de- 
scribe. I shall never forget it, and no one who 
was there ever can forget it. When the Pope 
raised himself on his chair and stretched out 
his hand to give the Apostolic Benediction, 
there was a stillness as of death throughout the 
vast hall — a stillness soon broken by sobs, for 
tears filled the eyes of all that were there, and 
many wept aloud. The first words were spoken 
in distinct though somewhat low tones, but as 
the last words, in nomine Patris et Filii et 
Spiritus Sancti, were being uttered the Holy 
Father himself broke down completely. The 
voice grew husky with emotion, the eyes 
closed, and great tears rolled down the aged 
cheeks. Leo XIII felt that he was blessing 
for the last time these faithful children of his 
from the two Americas, and we felt that never 



58 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

in this life should we look upon his face again. 
I must close abruptly, without as much as 
one word about Rome itself — Rome to which 
I have come, not merely as a pilgrim from 
afar to a holy place of pilgrimage, but as a son 
comes to his mother after long years of separa- 
tion. For Rome is to me the mother of my 
soul. 

♦ ♦ 4t 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 59 




Genoa, Friday, July 13. 

E left Rome Tuesday at 2 p. m., after 
a stay of six days, which was all too 
short. For one could spend months 
and months in Rome and still not see a tithe of 
what is worth seeing, or even begin to be weary 
of a place so rich in all that sages have thought 
and poets have dreamed of and artists have 
wrought and martyrs have bled for and saints 
have loved. We leave Rome with regret; feel- 
ing as all must feel in whom tliere is a spark of 
Divine Faith, that it is the City of the Soul, to 
which, in the words of the poet, " the exile of 
the heart " must forever turn. 

The run from Rome to Florence is made In 
five or six hours. Florence, the city of flowers, 
is built on both banks of the Arno. It is a 
beautiful city much frequented by tour- 
ists. It is the birthplace of many of Italy's 
greatest sons, of Dante, of Michael Angelo, of 
Galileo. Here Savonarola lived and preached 
and wielded an influence more potent than that 
of any civil ruler. We saw, in one of the pal- 



60 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

aces of the Medici, the chapel where he spoke 
his last words to his brother monks, just be- 
fore he was led out to be burnt at the stake in 
the Piazza of the Signoria, hard by. Here, 
too, first saw the light of day one who was 
the opposite of Savonarola in many ways, the 
sweet and gentle Philip Neri. Rome, the city 
of his adoption, of which he became the second 
Apostle, is still filled with the fragrance of his 
saintly life. 

From Florence we come by rail to Pisa, 
and thence the same day to Genoa. From 
Spezia to the latter city, the railway, skirting 
the shores of the Mediterranean, is one series 
of tunnels. In the intervals between tunnels 
we catch glimpses of as beautiful and pictur- 
esque scenery as one could wish to gaze upon — 
a background of hills, rising in many places ab- 
ruptly to a great height, sloping vineyards, 
groves of olive, clusters of fruit trees, and, in 
front, the waters of the Mediterranean, clear as 
crystal and mirroring in their depths the fleecy 
summer clouds that float in the blue above. 
Over all, like a great dome over Nature's own 
Cathedral, is the sky of Italy. 

" Genoa la Superba " — Genoa the Superb 
— the Genoese call this city by the rippling 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 61 

Mediterranean, and well they may. It is, in- 
deed, superb. In its marble palaces could be 
entertained to-day, in princely fashion, all the 
princes of the earth. It is the richest city of 
the peninsula, the great mart of the Mediter- 
ranean, the Liverpool of Italy. From the har- 
bour, where float the flags of all nations, the 
city resembles a vast amphitheatre, tier upon 
tier of tall buildings rising one above another. 
Even the urchins in the street are proud of this 
queenly city. In the higher part of the town, 
away up among the hills, near the marvellous 
Campo Santo, a group of them stood talking 
rapidly, and to me unintelligibly, in their own 
Genoese dialect, as we passed by. '' Che lin- 
guaggio parlate voi altri? " I asked somewhat 
bluntly. " Noi," says one of the number, with 
a sweep of the hand which took in the other 
members of the group, and then pointing 
proudly with his finger to his breast, " Noi 
siamo Genovesi — We are natives of Genoa." 

That Campo Santo, by the same token, is one 
of the wonders of the world. Truly the dead 
of Genoa dwell in marble halls, and this city 
of the dead is a miracle in marble. Every 
monument is a work of art. The pose of that 
figure, how graceful and natural! Those faces 



62 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

in marble and bronze, how life-like are they! 
The dead seem to live in them again, and to 
look down at you with their solemn eyes from 
the other world. 

We loved that hall, tho' white and cold 
Those niched shapes of noble mould 

A princely people's awful princes, 
The grave, severe Genoese of old. 

— Tennyson, '' The Daisy." 

Quieti et Memoriae — you meet it every- 
where, this terse and beautiful epigraph. Re- 
calling the memory of some dear departed one, 
it breathes a prayer for that rest after which 
the human heart ever hungers here below — 
that rest which we look for " where beyond 
these voices there is peace." 

For full nine hundred years, from 900 to 
1,800, Genoa maintained herself an indepen- 
dent Republic. Already six centuries had 
rolled over this Old World Republic when the 
boldest of her sailors embarked at Palos on his 
voyage of discovery. " Were it not for him 
we might all of us to-day be — Indians," is the 
curious thought that comes to one of the pil- 
grims as he gazes on the massive monument, 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 63 

near the railway station, which bears the leg- 
end in huge letters : 

A CHRISOFORO COLOMBO LA PATRIA 

Ah, those might-have-beens of an unborn past! 
It is bootless to speculate upon them. 



64 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 




LouRDES, July 19, 1900. 

OURDES is a small town in the dio- 
cese of Tarbes, Hautes Pryenees, 
picturesquely situated on the right 
bank of the river Gave." I quote the words 
from a booklet which purports to be " A Short 
Account of the Apparitions and Miracles at 
Lourdes." We arrived here from Toulouse 
about five o'clock on the afternoon of the 
day before yesterday. It had been a very 
hot day in the cars, but all covered with sweat 
and dust as we were we went straight in pro- 
cession to the Grotto of Our Lady, without 
waiting to go to our hotel. There, on our 
knees before the statue, which smiles down 
sweetly upon us, as did erstwhile the Virgin 
Mother for whom it stands, upon the simple 
peasant girl of the Pyrenees, we recite the 
Rosary and sing the Magnificat. All about us 
throngs are kneeling in prayer, and there are 
signs of a subdued excitement, for just five 
minutes before our arrival a young girl who 
had suffered severe injuries by a fall three 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 65 

years ago, and was carried thither in her little 
carriage, a few hours before, was seen to rise 
to her feet and walk. But neither before nor 
after the cure did she report at the Bureau des 
Constatations Medicales. 

The words that I have quoted at the head of 
this page were written twenty- four years ago 
by an English priest who visited the shrine. 
Were he now writing he would no longer say 
that Lourdes is a small town. The old town 
of Lourdes is, indeed, small, just a bit of a vil- 
lage in the Pyrenees. But the new Lourdes 
that has sprung up as if by magic on the banks 
of the Gave, over against the famous Grotto, 
has pretensions to rank as a city. It has its 
banks, its public buildings, its electric cars, 
rows upon rows of stores, though the wares 
are almost wholly of a devotional character, 
hotels and boarding houses without number, 
and a population of about ten thousand souls. 
And yet twenty-six years ago, just two years 
before our English priest wrote his account, 
there was not, as an old inhabitant told us, a 
stone upon a stone of the modern, and, for the 
most part, handsome buildings that one sees 
to-day. 

Nature has lavished her charms on this fav- 



66 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

oured spot. Nothing is wanting of all that can 
please the eye or soothe and rest the mind in 
natural scenery. Lofty hills in front and in 
the rear, some bare and bald, others clothed 
with forest to their very tops; in the back- 
ground, the snow-clad peaks and spurs of the 
Pyrenees; at your feet a narrow valley, stud- 
ded with stately trees and carpeted with green- 
sward; and ever in your ears, though the eye 
wearied with gazing, should seek repose, the 
rushing waters of the Gave. Surely a fitting 
entourage for this most gracious of all our 
Lady's shrines ! 

The waters of the Gave, how swiftly and 
noisily they flow, flinging themselves passion- 
ately upon the rude rocks that would stay their 
onward course ! The murmur of the Gave has 
been in my ears from a boy, for I seemed to 
hear the rushing of its waters when in boy- 
hood's days I lingered over the pages of Henri 
Lasserre's fascinating story of the wonders of 
Lourdes. And to-day as I sit on the bank and 
gaze down upon the swift stream that flings 
itself into the Adour to mingle finally with the 
waters of the mighty Atlantic, the Gave of my 
boyish dreams is a reality. It is something 
more. It is an emblem at once and a sermon — 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 67 

an emblem of the surging multitude of pil- 
grims which ever keeps streaming to the Grotto 
of our Lady, flowing hither from the ends of 
the earth; a sermon on the true purpose of life. 
See how this eager mountain stream, like a 
thing of life, runs joyously to its rest in the 
bosom of the great ocean! Not less surely 
was it meant by Nature to find there its repose 
than we are meant by the Author of Nature to 
find our repose in Him. Yet we linger by the 
way and loiter, while the Gave leaps onward, 
oh, how swiftly and how surely! to its goal 
and the home of its rest. 

But the Gave has not always been at this 
point the deep, narrow, noisy stream that it is 
to-day. Once it roamed at will over its rocky 
bed, making for itself a wider and more spa- 
cious pathway. Now stout stone walls fence 
it in and confine it to a narrow channel, and it 
frets and foams as does the wild beast of the 
forest when imprisoned behind iron bars. In 
these hot July days, too, the Gave runs deeper 
and swifter, fed by the melting snows of the 
Pyrenees. But on that February day, forty- 
two years ago, it was a feeble and mild-man- 
nered stream. Bernadette and her two little 
companions crossed the main stream by the 



68 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 

stone bridge. But a narrow side channel still 
separated them from the Grotto in the rocks 
of Massabielle, where was plenty of the drift 
wood they were in search of. Stooping down 
slowly to pull off her shoes and stockings with 
a view of wading this stream, Bernadette 
heard a noise as of a sudden gust of wind. 
" It was a calm grey day, and not a twig of 
the poplars was stirring, yet she felt certain 
that she had heard the rush of air. She 
stooped down again, and again the mysterious 
current startled her. This time the child 
looked up towards the niche-shaped cave. To 
her amazement a clear bright light issued from 
the aperture, in the midst of which stood a 
woman more wondrously beautiful than any 
one Bernadette had ever seen, or could have 
imagined. She was clad in white, with a long 
white veil falling over her shoulders; a blue 
scarf encircled her waist and reached to her 
knees, and upon either bare foot was a gold- 
coloured rose." I am quoting from my little 
book. But the story has been often told and 
is trite now, though it can never be common- 
place. 

The number of pilgrims who visit Lourdes 
yearly is estimated at two hundred and fifty 



I 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 69 

thousand. They come from every country un- 
der the sun. The two ends of America are 
wide enough asunder, yet the fact of our be- 
ing from the same continent is a real bond be- 
tween ourselves and our fellow-pilgrims from 
Brazil, whom we meet here at the shrine of our 
Lady as we met them at Paray le Monial and 
again in the audience chamber of the Vatican. 
* * Hi 



70 THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 




LouRDEs, Saturday, July 21. 

VERY DAY since our coming here has 
been for us a day of prayer, and, at the 
same time, a day of rest — rest for body 
and for soul. There is something in the very 
atmosphere of Lourdes which inspires devo- 
tion and invites repose. Every morning the 
pilgrims assist at Mass in the Grotto and many 
receive Holy Communion. We all of us take 
our places, too, in the procession of the Blessed 
Sacrament, and at night, in the torch-light pro- 
cession. This morning at ten o'clock we had 
Solemn High Mass in the Grotto, with a 
Canadian as celebrant, Canadians as ministers 
at the altar, and Canadians as singers. The 
service was, of course, in the open air, and 
very solemn and impressive it was. While we 
joined in the chant of the Mass, the wind in 
the trees around about us seemed to sing an 
accompaniment, and the hoarse-sounding Gave 
lent its deep bass voice as it sped on its way to 
the ocean. 

To-morrow at eleven o'clock we bid adieu 



THE DIARY OF A PILGRIM 71 

to Lourdes. With Lourdes our pilgrimage 
ends. At Paris, where we are due Monday 
evening, our pilgrim party breaks up. Some 
will stay there for a season, others will sail 
from Liverpool on the following Thursday, 
and yet others will visit parts of Scotland, 
Ireland, Belgium, or of France itself, before 
turning their steps homeward. Of this number 
is the present writer. But here at Lourdes, as 
I have said, our pilgrimage ends. And so 
from Lourdes, from this sweet shrine of Our 
Lady by the sounding waters of the Gave, let 
me send after its fellows this last leaf from 
The Diary of a Pilgrim. 



JOTTINGS OF A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 

f»gig^E/\VI N G Liverpool with its din and 
K|^3l|j smoke behind, we begin our journey by 
rail, through the northwestern part of 
England toward the Scottish border. It is 
near the end of July, and the weather, for Eng- 
land, is hot. But coming as we do direct from 
the stifling heat of Paris, we find it cool by 
comparison. We are travelling by fast express, 
and can catch but passing glimpses of the towns 
and hamlets, the broad farms and comfortable 
homesteads, of Old England. Now we are 
dashing through one of the many manufactur- 
ing towns with which the land is studded. 
There are long rows of red brick houses, with 
here and there a huge chimney belching forth 
black smoke. The next moment we are once 
more in the open country. On either hand as 
far as the eye can reach, are great stretches of 
farmland and green pastures where cattle are 
grazing. The grain is ripening in the fields, 
and ever and anon there comes, through the 
72 



A TRIP IN SCOTLAND 73 

open window of the car, the sweet savour of 
new-mown hay. As we go further north the 
country grows more rugged. Dark ravines 
open at our feet, and shaggy hills frown down 
upon us. By three o'clock we have passed 
Carlisle, once the great stronghold of England 
against the fierce incursions of its warlike 
neighbour to the north. Soon after we cross 
the border and find ourselves on Scottish soil. 
It is the land of our fathers — 

Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, 
Land of the mountain and the flood, — 

a land of stirring memories and teeming with 
romance. It is not without emotion, there- 
fore, that we enter it for the first time. Nor 
does the dense Scotch mist into which we run 
before reaching Edinburgh damp our enthusi- 
asm in the least — though we should not be able 
to say as much for our persons were we ex- 
posed to it but for a moment. 

We spend the Sunday in Edinburgh. That 
droll Frenchman who writes under the pen- 
name of Max O'Rell, defines a Scotchman as 
one who keeps the Sabbath and everything 
else he can lay his hands on! Well, at any 



74 A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 

rate he keeps the Sabbath, and that is more 
than many a Frenchman does. For the people 
of Edinburgh the Sunday is still emphatically a 
day of rest. To a Protestant gentleman from 
Toronto who had just come from Paris him- 
self and put up at the same hotel with us, we 
remark upon the contrast between the Parisian 
Sunday and the solemn quiet of the Scotch Sab- 
bath. " Quite so," he says, " but you should 
have been here yesterday while the Labor Pa- 
rade was passing through the streets. You 
would have seen one after another of the men 
dropping out of the procession in a state of 
beastly intoxication. In all the time that I was 
in Paris I saw no single instance of such drunk- 
enness." He had come away from Paris 
greatly edified, and was leaving Edinburgh ut- 
terly disgusted and horrified at what he had 
seen. Sobriety was more to him than Sunday 
observance. And yet human frailty may ac- 
count for drunkenness, and palliate it at least 
in part. But the violation of the Sunday has 
its root cause, it is to be feared, in a spirit of 
contempt for the ordinances of the Christian 
Religion. 

Edinburgh is not only the capital of Scot- 
land, but the queen of Scottish cities. There 



A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 75 

are few finer cities, indeed, in all the world. 
Its broad and well paved streets are kept scru- 
pulously clean. The buildings, almost all of 
them of granite, are tall and stately. And the 
site with its picturesque setting of hills is su- 
perb. On one of these hills, west from Prince 
street and Scott's Monument, stands the his- 
toric Castle like a grim sentinel guarding the 
approaches of the City. Climbing the hill and 
entering by the draw-bridge, we see, among 
other interesting relics of the past, the Chapel 
of the saintly Queen Margaret, and stand in 
the room where the ill-fated Mary Stuart took 
refuge after the murder of Rizzio, and where 
was born James the Sixth of Scotland and the 
First of England. In another room hard by 
we gaze upon the ancient Regalia of Scotland, 
" worthy of a nation's pride and jealous pres- 
ervation." 

The run from Edinburgh to Glasgow by rail 
is made in a little more than one hour. Our 
route lies through Lanarkshire, famed for its 
coal mines and iron foundries. Glasgow, with 
a population of over one million, is the second 
city of the Empire. Unlike Edinburgh, it has 
no pretentions to beauty. Still, it has some 
fine streets and very beautiful parks. It con- 



76 A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 

tains, too, not a few notable buildings, and 
there are in and around it many places of 
great historic interest. Its water supply, 
brought from Loch Katrine, thirty miles dis- 
tant, is not surpassed perhaps by that of any 
other city in the world. 

Early in the morning we leave Glasgow for 
Oban by boat. Steaming down the Clyde, we 
get a good view of the docks and of the ships 
both great and small that are a-building on 
either bank. A few miles down the river is 
Douglas Castle, and a little beyond, on the sum- 
mit of a rock 260 feet in height, rises Dum- 
barton Castle, famed in Scottish story. We 
touch at Greenock and Dunoon, and thence 
make for Rothesay, the capital of Bute. On 
our left, as we near the Bute shore, we see 
Mount Stuart House, the seat of the Marquis. 

Leaving Rothesay, the steamer runs up the 
Kyles or narrows (from the Gaelic caolas, a 
strait) of Bute, round the northern end of the 
island, and down the other side towards Ardla- 
mont Point on the mainland. The scenery on 
this strait is very fine, wooded mountain, loch, 
and glen blending their varied beauties into 
one picturesque whole. Rounding Ardlamont 
Point, we steer straight for the harbour of 



A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 77 

Tarbert, on the coast of Kintyre. Away to the 
south, and but dimly visible in the haze, is the 
island of Arran. From Tarbert we proceed 
up Loch Fyne to Ardrishaig, i8o miles from 
Glasgow, at the head of the Crinan Canal. 
This canal, which connects Loch Fyne with 
Loch Crinan, and is nine miles in length, runs, 
for a great part of the way, along the base of 
forest-clad hills. 

By this time, unluckily for us, it has begun 
to rain heavily, which mars our enjoyment of 
the rest of the trip to Oban. As the boat stops 
for the opening of the locks of the canal, we 
hear people on shore talking in Gaelic and real- 
ize that we have left the Lowlands behind. In 
spite of the rain two little barefooted girls and 
a little boy who has shoes on (shame on him!) 
follows us from lock to lock, selling milk by 
the glassful to the passengers. The children 
are quite brave at first, and stare at us, as much 
as to say, " What do we care what these En- 
glish strangers say or think of us." But the 
moment I speak to them in Gaelic, they grow 
shy of me, and the poor little girls look as if 
they were ashamed to be seen in their bare feet. 

Leaving Crinan, the western terminus of 
the canal, we have on our right the mainland 



78 A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 

of Argyle; on our left are the islands of Jura 
and Scarba. Between the two is the famous 
whirlpool of Corryvrechan, the roar of which 
may be heard at a distance of many miles. 
Away in the west, beyond Ross of Mull, lies 
far-famed lona, with Ulva dark and Colonsay 

And all the group of islets gay 
That guard famed Staffa round. 

Presently we descry Dunollie Castle, once the 
chief stronghold of the Lords of Lorn, and 
soon after land in Oban. 

Oban has been called the Charing Cross of 
the Highlands. And such it is in the sense of 
being the great distributing centre for tourists 
and travellers by rail or boat. But in every 
other sense how unlike is this quiet little town, 
with its cosy harbour and crescent beach, where 
the wavelets play at hide-and-seek with the 
pebbles, to the bustling railway station in the 
heart of the biggest and busiest of all earth's 
cities! During the summer months this cosy 
harbour is crowded with pleasure yachts from 
all parts of the world, and the hotels that line 
the pebbly beach are thronged with tourists 
from every land. 



A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 79 

For Oban is a dainty place 
In distant or in nigh lands, 

No town delights the tourist race 
Like Oban in the Highlands. 

So wrote the late Professor Blackie, himself a 
frequent visitor in his day to this charming re- 
sort on the shore of the western sea. 

At Oban in the early morning we take the 
" Gael " steamship for far Gairloch in Ros- 
shire. Dunollis Castle is on our right as we 
steam out of Oban Bay and make for Lismore 
Light, on the extreme southern end of the 
island of that name. Thence our way lies 
through the Sound of Mull to Ardnamurchan 
Point. The scenery along this Sound, where 
you have the mountains of Mull on the one 
hand, and on the other those of misty Morven, 
is surpassingly grand. Here on the Morven 
shore, in Ardtornish Castle, ancient seat of the 
Lords of the Isles, is laid the opening scene of 
Scott's well-known poem, which begins with 
the lines : 

" Wake, maid of Lorn," the minstrels sung. 
Thy rugged halls, Ardtornish, rung, 
And the dark seas thy towers that lave, 



80 A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 

Heaved on the beach a softer wave, 
As 'mid the tuneful choir to keep 
The diapason of the deep. 

Near the other end of the sound is Tober- 
mory (Mary's Well), the chief seaport of 
Mull, a very pretty town, in whose land-locked 
harbour ships of any tonnage find securest an- 
chorage. This port has for us a very special 
interest, as we have reason to believe that 
from hence our grand-parents sailed in the 
dawn of the century to make for themselves a 
home, beyond the stormy Atlantic, in what was 
then the wild woods of Nova Scotia. 

All day long, from early morn till set of 
sun, we follow our sinuous course through the 
sounds and lochs and bays of this western sea, 
calling here or there to land or take on pas- 
sengers. After leaving Torbermory while 
rounding Ardnamurchan Point, and until we 
gain the shelter of towering Scaur-Eigg, a per- 
pendicular cliff some five hundred feet high at 
the southwestern extremity of the island of 
that name, we are in the open Atlantic, with 
no land to the west of us nearer than America. 
North of Ardnamurchan lies Moidart, where 
Prince Charlie landed on the 25th of July, 



A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 81 

1745, and whence after many wanderings and 
hair-breadth escapes he sailed, on the 20th Sep- 
tember of the following year, a hopeless and 
broken man. 

From Eigg we cross over to Arisaig. 
Judging by what one can see of it from the 
deck of a steamer, it is far from being as fer- 
tile as the district that has been named after it 
in Nova Scotia. But perhaps there is no other 
spot on the western coast of Scotland where 
the view landward and seaward is so varied 
and so magnificent. 

After landing passengers at Arisaig, we 
steam along the coast of Morar on the main- 
land, having on our left the islands of Eigg, 
Rum, and Canna, and in front of us the south- 
ern extremity of Skye. Soon we enter the 
Sound of Sleat, and passing through the Kyle 
of Lochalsh, hug the eastern or inner shore of 
Skye till we reach Portree. It is a perfect day. 
The sun shines brightly, and the face of the 
laughing waters is gently fanned by the sum- 
mer winds. And the scenery is as grand as it 
is diversified. Leaving Portree (King's Port), 
so-called from having been visited by James 
V. of Scotland while cruising round these isles, 
we enter once more the Sound of Raasay. On 



83 A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 

the Skye shore, near the little island of Holm, 
is to be seen the entrance to a cave famed as 
one of the hiding places of the unfortunate 
Prince Charlie. Presently we pass out of the 
Sound of Raasay and enter the Minch. On 
the left, beyond the northern promontory of 
Skye, some of the Hebridean Islands are 
visible in the dim distance. Behind us the 
mountains of Skye rise in gloomy grandeur. 
As one gazes upon them, there comes to one's 
mind these words of MacCrimmon's Lament, 
done into English by Sir Walter Scott : 

Farewell to each clifif, on which breakers are 

foaming, 
Farewell to each dark glen in which red deer 

are roaming; 
Farewell lovely Skye, to lake, mountain, and 

river — 
Return, return, return, we shall never. 
(Cha till, cha till, cha till sinn tuille.) 

Galrloch has a fine hotel — with prices to 
match. It is a charming place, this quiet ham- 
let by the sea, but lonely withal. For here, 
away up north, one has that sense of isolation, 
of being cut off from the great world, which 
is itself twin-sister to the feeling of loneliness. 



A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 83 

We leave Gairloch early in the morning for 
Inverness, travelling by coach for 30 miles to 
Achnasheen (Field of the Fairies) and thence 
by rail. In the first five miles the road runs, 
part of the time, through a fine forest of 
larches, which seem to be related to our 
juniper tree, but are very tall and stately. On 
emerging from the wood and beginning the 
descent of a steep hill, we come of a sudden 
upon a loch which seems to surpass all the 
Scottish lochs in the wild and rugged gran- 
deur of the scenery along its shores. It was 
some such sight as here greets our eyes that 
inspired Sir Walter's muse to sing, — 

Stranger; if e'er thine ardent step hath traced 
The northern realms of ancient Caledon, 
Where the proud Queen of Wilderness hath 

placed, 
By lake and cataract her lonely throne ; 
Sublime but sad delight thy soul hath known, 
Gazing on pathless glen and mountain high, 
Listing where from the cliffs the torrents 

thrown 
Mingle their echoes with the eagle's cry, 
And with the sounding lake, and with the 

moaning sky. 



84 A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 

For where more fittingly than here by Loch 
Maree, on some lonely mountain peak, could 
the Queen of Wilderness set up her throne? 
Here, in sooth, are pathless glen and mountain 
high and torrents flung from cliffs. And the 
very spirit of Desolation seems to brood over 
the place. You may travel miles on this loch 
without seeing a single human habitation. 
Steep mountains, bare of trees and even of 
vegetation, shut it in on all sides. The loftiest 
peak in Ruadh Stac Mor, which rises to a 
height of 3,309 feet; but there are several 
other peaks almost as high. Half way up the 
loch is a summer hotel for tourists, where 
Queen Victoria stayed a week something more 
than a score of years ago. Over against this 
hotel, near the other side of the loch, is a 
wooded islet, called Isle Maree, on which 
may be seen the ruins of a monastery, " in 
days of yore," says our guide book, " an oasis 
of learning in the desert of heathenism." 
Tradition has it that the waters of a well on 
this little island (mayhap another Tobair 
Moire or Mary's Well!) cured insanity — a 
tradition which the gentle Quaker poet Whit- 
tier has embalmed in these lines : 



1 



A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 85 

Calm on the breast of Isle Maree 

A little Well reposes: 
A shadow woven of the oak 

And willow o'er it closes, 
And whoso bathes therein his brow, 

With care or madness burning, 
Feels once again his healthful thought 

And sense of peace returning. 
Life's changes vex, its discords stun, 

Its glaring sunshine blindeth; 
And blest is he who on his way 

That fount of healing findeth! 

I suspect that Loch Maree is an English 
corruption of the Gaelic Loch Mairi (Loch 
Mary or Mary's Loch). The monks were 
ever and everywhere devout clients of the 
Blessed Mary. It is not at all unlikely, there- 
fore, that the community of monks who an- 
ciently made their home In this romantic spot 
named both the loch and the little Isle on which 
they built their monastery after their Heavenly 
Patroness. 

On leaving Loch Maree the road follows 
the bed of a brook for some distance up a dark 
glen. On either hand are " rising mountains 
red with heather bells," on the slopes of which 



86 A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 

the hardy Highland sheep are grazing. Once 
the summit of the ridge is gained, it is down 
hill to Achnasheen, where we take the train 
for Inverness. Our way for several miles lies 
through a wilderness, but all at once we come 
upon a lovely strath, in as high a state of culti- 
vation as any district we have seen in the Low- 
lands or even in England. It looks all the 
more beautiful by contrast with the barren and 
desolate region through which we have just 
passed. The name of it I cannot for the 
moment recall. But the valley itself as I saw 
it, with the bloom of summer upon it, and the 
light of the westering sun, is vividly present to 
my imagination. 

Inverness, at the mouth of the River Ness, 
is, after Edinburgh, the handsomest city in 
Scotland. Prof. Blackie sings its praises in 
the following sonnet : 

Some sing of Rome, and some of Florence; I 

Will sound thy Highland praise, fair Inver- 
ness ; 

And till some worthier bard thy thanks may 
buy, 

Hope for the greater, but not spurn the less. 

All things that make a city fair are thine, 



A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 87 

The rightful queen and sovereign of this land 
Of bens and glens, and valiant men, who shine 
Brightest in Britain's glory roll, and stand 
Best bulwarks of her bounds — wide-circling 

sweep 
Of rich green slopes and brown empurpled 

brae, 
And flowering mead, and far inwinding bay, 
Temple and tower are thine, and castled keep, 
And ample stream, that round fair gardened 

isles 
Rolls its majestic current, wreathed in smiles. 

Scotland, as a glance at a map of the globe 
will show, is several degrees farther north than 
Nova Scotia. Up here at Inverness, during the 
first week of August, the twilight lasts till af- 
ter 10 p. m. Towards the end of June, when 
the day is at its longest, the sun does no more 
than dip for a few hours below the horison, 
and at no time of the night does its light fade 
away altogether from the northern sky. 

Four miles from Inverness is Culloden 
Moor. But we visit not that ''field of the 
dead " so fraught with saddening memories 
to every Highlander. 

Leaving the capital of the Highlands, we go 



88 A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 

by boat to Fort William through the Cale- 
donian Canal. This passage is sixty-two miles 
long. There are twenty-four miles of canal, 
and thirty-eight of natural lake, namely, Loch 
Ness (24 miles), Loch Oich (4 miles), and 
Loch Lochy (10 miles). On these lochs and 
along the stretches of land between them the 
scenery is of surpassing beauty. On either 
side is a range of purple hills rising in places 
to a great height. Now they close in about us 
as if to dispute our passage. The next moment 
they fall back and form into line in the rear, 
keeping ward over the great highway of waters 
that cleaves the land of the Scottish Gael in 
twain and weds two seas together. And now 
Ben Nevis (4,406 ft.) looms afar ofif on the 
left, lording it over all the hills. At his feet 
and under his very shadow stands Fort Wil- 
liam, known to the old folk as An Gearristan. 
Along the plain below rolls the Lochy River 
till it empties its waters into Loch Linnhe. 
Those glens that lie at the foot of the moun- 
tain range northeastward from Ben Nevis are 
Ruaidh and Spean, along the rivers of the same 
name. And this is Lochaber, " synonym for 
an exile's wail." Children we of those sad- 
eyed exiles, is it any wonder that our hearts 



A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 89 

beat more quickly as we gaze on the heather- 
clad hills now rising before us? Even we, 
of the third generation, still feel within us 
something of their heart-hunger for the old 
home they loved so well— the heart-hunger 
which found a voice and still finds an echo in 
that saddest of sad refrains, 

Lochaber, Lochaber, Lochaber no more, 
We'll maybe return to Lochaber no more. 

The Highlands, and the islands on the west 
of Scotland, are to-day but sparsely populated. 
A hundred years ago these lovely straths and 
glens were filled with people. Even the braes 
and moorlands, now so bare and barren, 
yielded a frugal livelihood to a hardy race of 
men whose wants were few and tastes most 
simple. To-day whole districts are given over 
to sheep and deer. 

In Highland glens 'tis far too oft observed, 
That man is chased away and game preserved. 

So wrote the Hon. John Bright, in blunt but 
honest English fashion. More pathetic is the 
tale of desolation as told in Gaelic verse — in 



90 A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 

lines of exquisite tenderness and beauty — by 
one who is a native of those glens and " to the 
manner born " — one who has in our own day 
successfully wooed the Highland Muse " 'mang 
the bonnie Highland heather " — Macleod, the 
spirited bard of Skye. I quote two or three 
stanzas from his poem, Anns a Ghleann 'san 
RobhMiOg: 

Tha na fardaichean 'n an fasaich 
Far an d'araicheadh na seoid, 
Far'm bu chridheil fuaim an gaire, 
Far'm bu chairdeal iad mun bhord; 
Far a fhaigheadh coigreach baigh, 
Agus anrach bochd a Ion ; 
Ach cha'n fhaigh iad sin's an am so 
Anns a' ghleann's an robh mi og. 

Chaochail maduinn ait ar n-oige 

Mar an ceo air bharr nam beann, 
Tha ar cairdean 's ar luchd-eolais 

Air a fogradh bhos us thall; 
Tha cuid eile dbuibh nach gluais, 

Tha'n na cadal buan fodh'n fhod, 
'Bha gun uaill. gun fhuath. gun anthlachd, 

Anns a' ghleann's an robh iad og. 



A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 91 

Mo shoraidh leis gach cuairteig, 

Leis gach bruachaig agus cos : 
Mu'n trie an robh mi 'cluaineis 

'N am 'bhi buachailleachd nam bo — 
'Nuair a thig mo reis gu 'ceann, 

Agus feasgar fann mo lo, 
B'e mo mhiann a bhi's an am sin 

Anns a' ghleann's an robh mi og. 

The song has been done into English, or 
rather into mixed Enghsh and broad Scotch, 
but it has lost somewhat in the rendering. The 
foregoing stanzas run thus in the translation : 

Now in ruins are the dwellin's, 

Where ance lived a gallant clan ; 
Their's was aye the friendly welcome, 

Their's was aye the open han' ; 
There the stranger and the puir 

Found a place at the fire-en' ; 
Now alas! there's nane tae greet them 

In my bonnie native glen. 

Like the mist upon the mountain 
Youth's glad morn of promise died, 

And our kinsfolk and acquaintance, 
They are scattered far and wide; 



92 A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 

Some of them are sleepin' soun' 

Neath the shadow of the ben, 
That were ance baith leal and hearty 

In their bonnie native glen. 

But now fare ye weel each fountain, 

Each sweet dell an' grassy brae, 
Where fu' aft the kye I herded, 

In my boyhood's happy day. 
When life's gloamin' settles down, 

An' my race is at an en', 
'Tis my wish that death should find me 

In my bonnie native glen. 

Wherever you travel in the Western High- 
lands you hear Gaelic spoken. And ever as it 
strikes upon your ears, there arises within you 
— at least if you happen to be a Highlander 
yourself — the question, Will the old tongue 
live on here amid the bens and glens that have 
echoed with it since immemorial time ? Or is it 
doomed to die out in this its ancient home ? It 
is hard to say. For my own part, I believe 
Gaelic will be spoken in the Highlands so long 
as there are Highlanders there. But I don't 
know how long that will be. Certainly they 
are far fewer to-day than they were at the be- 



A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 9S 

ginning of the last century. And the country 
is becoming more and more a mere summer re- 
sort for tourists and sportsmen. As matters 
stand at present there is no future for the 
Highland youth in their Highland home. On 
growing up to manhood and womanhood, they 
drift into the cities of the Lowlands, or cross 
the ocean. And ever as they go, their sad 
hearts echo the wailing notes of MacCrimmon's 
Lament, or Lochaber No More. I wish I 
could share the confidence in the ultimate re- 
peopling of the Highlands that is expressed — 
perhaps rather than felt — by the Skye bard al- 
ready quoted, in the following lines : 

'S bidh fhathast a cairdean 

Mar bha iad bho chian, 
An' duthaich nan ardbheann 

An aite nam fiadh ; 
Gu curanta' laidir, 

Gu blath-chridheach fial, 
'S an comhradh gach la 

Ann an canan nam Fionn. 

With the Gaelic language there also survives 
in the Highlands the hospitable spirit for which 
Highlanders, and all Celts indeed, are noted 



94 A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 

wherever they are found. But while the 
people there give of their Highland cheer to all 
who visit them, they have a particularly warm 
place in their hearts for *' muinntir America/' 
their kinsmen from across the seas. 

Leaving Fort William, we go by boat on 
Loch Linnhe to Oban. The boat calls at 
several places, among them Ballachulish, at the 
entrance to Loch Leven, whence we get a 
glimpse in the distance of Glencoe. Even on 
this bright summers day the narrow pass, 
hemmed in by frowning mountains, looks 
gloomy and dark — fitting theatre for the black 
and fearful tragedy that was enacted there. 

From Oban we return to Glasgow through 
the Trossachs, part of the way by rail, part 
of the way by boat on Loch Lomond and Loch 
Katrine, and part of the way by coach between 
the lochs. The whole country through which 
we pass is classic ground, familiar to every 
lover of Scott. To describe the scenery of the 
Trossachs, therefore, after the exquisite word- 
painting of it in prose and verse that we have 
from the pen of Sir Walter, were as " wasteful 
and ridiculous excess " as 



A TRIP IN SCOTLAND. 95 

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily, 
To add a perfume to the violet. 

As I write these last words the solemn bells 
are tolling the death-knell of our beloved 
Queen. The whole Empire mourns, and the 
grief is heartfelt, for all own and feel to-day 
the truth of the lines written by the worthiest 
poet laureate of the long and glorious reign 
that is now ended, 

" Her court was pure; her life serene: 
God gave her peace, her land reposed ; 
A thousand claims to reverence closed 
In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen." 



ROME. 

A Christmas Reminiscence. 

V^^j^T is not often I am in a reminiscent 
^1^ mood. Even should the mood come 
upon me, I can seldom indulge 
it. In this work-a-day world the cares 
and duties of the present crowd out the 
memories of the past. But ever as the 
blessed season of Christmas comes round the 
mind is in a measure freed from the tyrant 
grasp of the present. And at the approach of 
this festival mine loves to go back, swiftly 
overleaping the. barriers of space and time, to 
the dear old City on the Tiber, where I spent 
five of the happiest years of my life. I can 
remember as distinctly as though it were yes- 
terday the day when first I set foot in Rome. 
It was toward the end of October, 1879. The 
sun shone out brightly from the deep blue of 
the Italian sky, and the soft, balmy breath of 
summer still lingered in the air. From early 
morning we had traversed a land of almost 
96 



ROME 97 

ideal loveliness, now skirting the shores of the 
sparkling Mediterranean, now dashing past 
villas and vineyards where the air was laden 
with the fragrance of the vintage. The sun 
was slowly sinking in the west as we passed 
Civita Vecchia, the seaport of Rome, and sped 
on our way through the dreary waste of the 
Roman Campagna. Soon the Alban Hills 
loomed up in front, while the line of sea-coast 
stretching away on the right was fast fading 
from the view. There, where the Tiber flings 
its tawny waters into the Mediterranean, once 
stood the City of Ostia, the ancient seaport of 
Rome, facing, as every student of Virgil 
knows, in the far distance, Carthage, Rome's 
most dreaded rival while yet she was '* dives 
opum studiisque asperrima belli." 

And now we are within the city walls, the 
train draws up to the depot, and I step forth, 
a stranger indeed, yet not with the feelings of 
one who sets foot in a strange city : for Rome, 
though force has made it the capital of United 
Italy, is and always will be the capital of 
Christendom, the centre from which radiate 
the lights of Catholicity over all the earth, and 
the home of the pilgrim from every land. 

One who goes from America into Europe 



98 ROME 

realizes that to have crossed the Atlantic is not 
merely to have left one part of the habitable 
globe and gone into another. It is a passing 
from the New World into the Old, in almost 
every respect a different world from the one 
that is left behind. And in no place as at Rome 
is it brought home to one who crosses the ocean 
that the Atlantic is not the only gulf that di- 
vides these two worlds. Rome is the typical 
city of the Old World, or rather is the Old 
World in miniature. There all its most strik- 
ing characteristics meet as they do in no other 
European city. There you may study old world 
customs and the old world life in its many 
phases, old world art and architecture, and 
above all those old-world monuments and ruins 
around which gather a thousand historical as- 
sociations. Here rises the Palatine Hill, the 
original site and centre of the embryo mistress 
of the world, where tradition places the dwell- 
ing of Romulus, and where later stood the 
gorgeous palace of the Caesars, whose ruins 
still attest its old-time grandeur. Below is the 
Roman Forum which once rang with the elo- 
quence of Cicero, and traversing it from north 
to south, the Via Sacra or Sacred Way. At 
one end of the Forum is the Mamertine Prison, 



ROME 99 

a dark and dismal underground dungeon, 
where kings led captive by pagan Rome were 
strangled or starved to death, and where still 
exists the spring which, according to tradition, 
St. Peter, imprisoned here under Nero, mi- 
raculously caused to flow in order to baptize 
his jailers. At some distance to the south 
stands the Colosseum, nearly one-third of a 
mile in circumference, and originally contain- 
ing seats for 87,000 spectators. Here, in the 
arena, the scene of gladiatorial combats, 
thousands of Christian martyrs fought the 
good fight and won the crown. A quaint pro- 
phetic saying, which dates from the 8tli cen- 
tury, has it that 

While stands the Colosseum, Rome shall stand, 
When falls the Colosseum, Rome shall fall. 
And when Rome falls, with it shall fall the 
World. 

But I should never end if I were to speak of all 
the monuments of both Pagan and Christian 
Antiquity that make Rome the connecting link 
between the ancient and the modern world. 

The Rome of to-day is not the Rome of 
twenty years ago. The tourist who wandered 



100 ROME 

and mused among the ruins in and around 
it then would scarcely know it now, so vast 
is the change that has come over it. Your mat- 
ter-of-fact modern man, who scowls at an- 
tiquity and lives in and for the present only, 
would say that the change has been greatly for 
the better. Streets have been widened and 
straightened, numberless new ones have been 
opened, and the wide space east and south of 
the Esquiline Hill, once studded with vener- 
able ruins, is now occupied by rows of huge 
brick buildings, inferior in make and unsightly. 
In a word, the old Rome, amid whose magnif- 
icent ruins still abode the genius of Antiquity, 
has all but disappeared, and the new Rome, a 
third-rate modern city, shorn of much of its 
historical interest, has usurped its place. 
" Rome in twenty or thirty years," wrote Mr. 
Frederick Harrison recently in the " Fort- 
nightly Review," " has become like any other 
European city — big, noisy, vulgar, overgrown, 
Frenchified and syndicate-ridden." 

Rome, Rome thou art no more 

As thou hast been! 
On thy seven hills of yore 

Thou sat' St a queen. 



ROME 101 

Newman had written of it, on visiting it for 
the first time in the early thirties of last cen- 
tury : " And now what can I say of Rome, 
but that it is the first of all cities, and that all 
I ever saw are but as dust (even dear old Ox- 
ford inclusive) compared with its majesty and 
glory? " It has certainly since then lost much 
of its charm for the tourist and the anti- 
quarian. But the majesty and glory that so im- 
pressed Newman — these no spoiler's hand can 
pluck from the brow of the queenly city on the 
Tiber. 

It is not merely the glamour antiquity 
throws around it that makes Rome a centre of 
attraction. In the wondrous works of art gath- 
ered into it from every side, in the number 
and magnificence of its churches and shrines, 
in the prestige it possesses as the capital of the 
Christian world for eighteen hundred years, it 
stands peerless among the cities of the earth. 
Anything like a detailed account of the art 
treasures in the Vatican alone would fill 
volumes. Almost every church in Rome, too, 
and every palace, has its works of art, its 
paintings, mosaics, and sculptures, of priceless 
value. And as for the churches, no words can 
fittingly describe them. " They could not have 



102 ROME 

been in any place but Rome, which has turned 
the materials and buildings of the Empire to 
the purposes of religion." The exterior, save 
in the case of the large basilicas, is not strik- 
ing; their beauty, like the glory of the king's 
daughter, is within. St. Peter's, of course, 
stands apart from and above them all, a world 
of wonders in itself. The first visit does not 
reveal its vastness nor the exquisite grace 
and delicacy of its proportions. It is only by 
visiting it again and again that one can, so 
to speak, take it all in, if indeed one can 
ever do so. There is this peculiarity about it, 
too, that it has what, for want of a better 
word to convey the idea, I am tempted to 
call a climate of its own. In winter, when 
Rome is swept by the tramontana, a penetrat- 
ing and chilling wind which blows for days 
at a time from the snow-capped Apennines, 
making life scarce worth living in the fireless 
apartments of the Roman dwellings, you will 
find warmth and comfort within St. Peter's. 
And in vain will you seek amid the shady 
groves of the Roman villas for a tithe of the 
delicious coolness that dwells within the 
charmed circle of its walls all through the 
broiling heat of the summer months in Rome. 



ROME lOd 

And what of the festival of Christmas in the 
Eternal City? In September, 1870, Victor 
Emmanuel's troops entered Rome by the 
breach of Porta Pia, and with their coming in 
the old-time Christmas and the old-time Easter 
went out. The faithful Romans have not had 
a Merry Christmas since. The Pope used to 
proceed in person to celebrate the midnight 
Mass at St. Mary Major's, where is preserved 
the Crib in which the Infant Saviour was laid 
on the night of His Nativity. With the ex- 
ception of the Easter celebrations, it was the 
most imposing ceremony that could be wit- 
nessed at Rome in those days. The Saviour's 
Crib is always borne in procession through the 
church of St. Mary Major's on Christmas Eve. 
In some of the churches, and even in private 
houses, the scene of the Christ Child's birth in 
Bethlehem is represented in a wonderfully ar- 
tistic and life-like way. One of these repre- 
sentations, which are got up mainly for the chil- 
dren, is to be seen in the church of Santa Maria 
in Aracoeli, situated on the Capitoline Hill, 
where once stood a temple of Jove. Hither we 
students of the Propaganda used to wend our 
way, during the days within the octave of 
Christmas, to listen to the " children preachers 



104 ROME 

of Aracoeli." These little ones, from five to 
ten years of age, standing on a platform facing 
the Christmas Crib, lifted their fresh young 
voices in greeting and prayer to their new- 
born King. It recalled the scene described in 
Matt. 21:15-16: the children crying in the 
temple, " Hosanna to the Son of David," and 
Jesus saying to those who would rebuke them, 
" Yea, have you never read, Out of the mouths 
of infants and sucklings thou has perfected 
praise." 



THE ROSES OF ASSISI. 

^^^N The Ave Maria, of February 8, 1908, 
^1^ the noted Danish writer, Johannes 
Jorgensen, tells of a visit to Assisi, and 
makes this passing allusion to the singular 
phenomenon also alluded to in The Diary of a 
Pilgrim : '' Then there is the rose garden 
where the bushes are strangely flecked as if 
with spots of blood." When the present writer 
stood beside this little plot, in the early days of 
July, 1900, the roses were not in bloom — it was 
past their season in Italy — but the bushes were 
in leaf, of course. Strictly speaking, it is not 
the bushes that bear the flecks of red, but the 
roses and the leaves. The impression made 
upon one is not soon effaced. It looks for all 
the world as if those leaves had been sprinkled 
with blood. Here and there a leaf seems to 
have caught a drop, a few, two or three, which 
left a crimson stain, while most show a fleckless 
green. But this is not the most striking phase 
of the phenomenon. It has passed into a prov- 
105 



106 THE ROSES OF ASSIST 

erb that there is no rose without its thorn, 
though Milton, in a flight of fancy, found in 
our lost paradise, 

Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the 
rose. 

But under the lovely sky of Italy and under 
the shadow of the Umbrian hills, in fair As- 
sisi, famed forever as the birthplace and early 
home of the Poverello, grow roses without 
thorns. The writer felt the bushes with his 
hand, and proved them thornless. What is 
more, our little pilgrim group, of whom some 
have since gone on their long pilgrimage, were 
told on that July day, seven years ago, by the 
Prior of the Franciscan Monastery, a true son 
of Saint Francis if appearances count for 
aught, that time and time again was the ex- 
periment made of transplanting those bushes, 
and that they grew up with thorns and with 
stainless leaves. Here is the legend, if legend 
that can be called, which Nature seems to 
vouch for, copied from a leaflet, enclosing a 
spray of the rose leaves now brown with the 
years, which the writer brought with him 
from Assisi: 



THE ROSES OF ASSISI 107 

" One bitter winter's night, S. Francis being 
sorely tempted by the devil to lessen his aus- 
terities, overcame the evil one by throwing him- 
self into a thicket of briers, and rolling himself 
in it till his body was all torn and bleeding. 
At the same moment the briers were changed 
into rose trees in full bloom, and a heavenly 
brightness shone around, and angels came to 
lead S. Francis to the Church of the Portiun- 
cula, where Our Lord appeared to him in 
Person accompanied by His Mother and a 
heavenly host, and granted him the Indulgence 
of the Portiuncula. The miraculous rose 
bushes have no thorns, their leaves are stained 
with spots like blood in May, and can be seen 
in the Garden of the Friary adjoining the 
Portiuncula at the village of Santa Maria degli 
Angeli which is close to the Station of Assisi 
in Italy." 




FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES. 

December io, 'o8. 

E leave New York at noon. It is a 
perfect winter's day — the air cold and 
crisp, the sun brightly shining. There 
are all manner of craft in the North River, or 
Hudson, and our big ship makes her way 
among them with leisurely dignity. On our 
starboard is Jersey City; on the port side, the 
buildings of Old Manhattan raise their giant 
forms, fearfully and wonderfully tall. Pres- 
ently we pass by the statue of Liberty, and 
leave the great metropolis of the New World 
behind. A marvellous city is New York, 
marching forward with gigantic strides to the 
forefront of the world's cities. Even now it 
is second only to London, and in ways not a 
few it is first. We pass out of the roar of its 
traffic, away from its teeming, busy life, and 
the restful ocean takes us to its heaving 
bosom. 

" Our next port of call is Boston," says one 
108 



FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 109 

passenger to another standing near him, just as 
we are getting out to sea. " Not at all," re- 
joins the other, *' this boat doesn't call at 
Boston." An officer of the ship, who is stand- 
ing by, is appealed to, and he bears out the 
first speaker. The news is received with 
surprise amounting almost to consternation. 
Hardly one of the passengers knew of this 
change in our programme of travel. Back 
to Boston; it is like going back home again! 
But to Boston we steer our course. Off Cape 
Cod, miles and miles out at sea, men are fishing 
in their dories. We pass within fifty yards of 
one, but so intent is he upon his work that he 
does not as much as cast one look at us. After 
a little we pick up our pilot, and begin thread- 
ing our way through the narrow entrance to 
Boston harbour. 



December ii. 

Our ship is docked at Charlestown. We 
go ashore, take an " L " road car at City 
Square, and speedily reach Boston. Our 
friends in the city, to whom we bade farewell 
a few days before, are almost thunderstruck 
at seeing us. They can scarce believe their 



110 FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 

eyes. We seem to have dropped upon them 
from the skies, or rather to have been spirited 
back through space from the ocean. A few 
words clear up the mystery. Next morning 
(Saturday) we say an early Mass, and hasten 
back on board. But the good ship " Cretic " 
is in no hurry to put to sea. She lingers for a 
full hour beyond the allotted time. We could 
not have missed her if we tried. 



December 12. 

It is snowing heavily as we steam slowly 
out of Boston harbour. We drop our pilot, 
and at noon have the lightship abeam. At 
last we are fairly under way, but so thickly 
falls the snow that we move along at little more 
than half-speed, and the steamer's whistle 
keeps blowing as in a fog. After an hour or 
two we run out of the snowstorm, and the 
whistling ceases. A tugboat inward bound, 
towing three huge barges, is the last object we 
descry this' day, for darkness soon settles upon 
the scene. 

This evening I sit and listen dreamily to the 
soft accents of the Italian tongue. One or two 



FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 111 

of the saloon passengers are Italian and the 
ship's doctor is a native of the land of sunshine 
and song. It is twenty-five years since I dwelt 
in that land, but those intonations strike the 
ear and those inimitable gestures the eye as 
familiarly as if it were but yesterday. What a 
wonderful thing is memory! How it bridges 
the years, and brings the dead past to life 
again ! By it we reverse the poet's process, and 
" stretch a hand through time to catch " the 
forms of things long passed away. 

" Vedi Napoli e poi Mori." This, my 
Italian friend tells me, is the original of the 
saying that runs in English : " See Naples 
and die." As you approach Naples, Mount 
Vesuvius rises in the rear, and beyond it is 
the little town of Mori. The original saying 
is, " See Naples and then Mori." But as it 
happens that " mori " is also the imperative of 
the verb " morire " — " to die," a play upon the 
word gives the meaning, " See Naples and 
then die " — as if no place else worth seeing 
were left in all the wide world. 
» « ft 



112 FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 

December 13. 

Our first Sunday at sea, the third of Advent. 
We have passed from the region of snow and 
sleet, and the change is welcome. The morn- 
ing breaks bright and clear, and as the day 
wears on it grows distinctly warmer. The sun 
shines out of a cloudless sky and the air is 
balmy as in a June day. While I write the 
thermometer out on the promenade deck shows 
56 degrees in the shade. Frost and snow are 
things of the past — things of the land we have 
left behind. 

Not having a portable altar, we are unable 
to say Mass. There are more than seven hun- 
dred persons in the steerage, mostly Italians 
seeking " la bella patria " — their own lovely 
homeland. I arrange with the captain to have 
a service for them at 3 p. m. The second-class 
saloon being too small, we hold the service 
under an awning on the deck. Dressed in 
cassock and with my rochet on — for the very 
first time — I kneel upon the main hatch and 
say aloud in Latin the Rosary and Litany of 
the Blessed Virgin, which they all answer in 
the same tongue. These people, I may re- 
mark by the way, are all taught from child- 



FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 113 

hood to say those prayers in the language of 
the Church. Prayers over, I address them a 
few words in Italian, the season and the oc- 
casion furnishing a theme. Exiles are we 
from home, seeking a fatherland afar, and 
One has come down from that fatherland 
to raise us up and to lead us on. As we cross 
the sea of life, not always calm and untroubled 
as the one we sail to-day, we must pause from 
time to time to lift up our eyes and fix them on 
the eternal truths that shine like stars upon 
our pathway. We must prepare for the advent 
of the Sun of Justice, and from the lesser 
lights turn our gaze longingly to the bright 
morning Star that heralds His rising. Such 
is the sum of what I said, but I must own that 
it sounds much better in this English summary 
than it did in such poor Italian as I could 

muster. 

* ♦ * 

December 14. 
At noon the log reads : 
Lat. Long. Weather Remarks 

41.34 56.28 Fresh gale: W. SW. 

Dis. 317 SW. S. S. W., rough 

quarterly sea. 
Average Speed : 13.49 



114 FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 

We have run into a storm, or it has run in 
upon us. *' Fresh gale " means a wind blow- 
ing 50 or 60 miles an hour. But our ship is 
very steady. Still there is a good deal of 
motion — of that queer, all-round, uncertain, 
miserable motion so apt to induce sea-sickness. 
My companion, though he has been so seldom 
to sea, is a better sailor than I. As for me, I 
feel that I could very easily be quite sick if I 
wanted to. But I don't want to, and up to a 
certain point one can fight this sickness off. 
My chief occupation all day is fighting off sea- 
sickness. The wild winds, the wailing sea- 
waves, the reeling, staggering ship keep telling 
me it is of no use; that I had better crawl into 
my berth and give up the uneven struggle. But 
I hold out in spite of all of them. As I write 
this in the steamer's library at 6 p. m. the bat- 
tle is still on and the issue somewhat doubtful. 



December 15. 

The battle Is fought and won — thanks to 
the abating of the storm and a calmer sea. 
The weather to-day is fine and warm — 58 de- 
grees in the shade. It was 68 degrees yester- 



FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 115 

day, and the mugginess of the atmosphere 
made it unpleasant. For me, indeed, it is 
never too pleasant on board ship. I have an 
uneasy feeling that the most one can hope for 
is a truce, and that the battle with sea-sickness 
may have to be fought over again at any 
moment. Under such circumstances writing is 
not easy. 

The sea, the deep mysterious sea, with its 
changeful, elusive hues and its passionate 
moods ! The dominant mood, I fancy, is 
melancholy. The sea lifts up its voice only to 
weep, and every sea-sound dies away in a sob 
or a wail. When the crested waves break into 
foam, what are the spray drops but the tears 
of the salt sea? It not only yields a grave to 
the countless millions that are buried beneath 
its waters, but weeps for them ever, and chants 
over them an unending requiem. And its lone- 
liness is beyond words. Mid-ocean seems the 
native home of solitude — a solitude that the 
passing ship leaves unbroken. What a tale 
this lonely, moaning sea could tell of the men 
who have sunk into its depths, '' unknelled, un- 
coffined, and unknown ! " But till it gives up 
its dead, that tale shall not be told. 



116 FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 

December i6. 

Late last evening I sat talking in the smok- 
ing-room with a Protestant gentleman from 
Minneapolis. Some years ago he visited the 
Holy Land, and I was interested in the account 
he gave of it. He does not seem to have been 
much impressed by the country itself or its 
sanctuaries. " The most beautiful sight I saw 
in the Holy Land," he declared with evident 
sincerity, '' was the face of a nun." It was not 
the physical, but the spiritual beauty of the 
face that struck him and imprinted itself upon 
his memory. A beautiful soul beamed out 
from it — a soul made beautiful by close com- 
munion with God. " I will feed on God," says 
Alexandrine in A Sister's Story, not knowing 
very well at the moment what she means. But 
she did feed on God, and became beautiful as 
an angel, with that beauty which never can 
fade. If we would be truly beautiful let us 
feed on God the Uncreated Beauty, ever an- 
cient and ever new. 



FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 117 

December 17. 

How shall we feed on God? First by 
prayer. Not as completely is the fish im- 
mersed in the sea or the bird in the air as 
the soul is in God, for He is everywhere, 
and " in Him we live, and move, and are." 
Every time we breathe we drink in the fresh 
Every time we breathe we drink in the fresh 
air to renew the life of the body; every time 
we pray, if we pray aright, we draw down 
the grace of God to give new life to the soul. 
And as when a man ceases to breathe we know 
that the life is gone out of him, so when a man 
ceases to pray we may know that his soul is 
dead within him. But there is another, a more 
literal and yet more wondrous way of feeding 
on God, and that is Holy Communion. "I 
am the Bread of Life," and again, " He who 
eats Me shall also live by Me." " As the hare 
in winter," says St. Francis of Sales, " grows 
white by feeding on the snow, so the soul grows 
white by feeding on this Heavenly Manna." 
The science may be at fault, but the thought is 
true. " It is the boast of the Catholic Church," 
observes Cardinal Newman, '* that she can 
keep the young heart chaste, because she gives 



118 FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 

Jesus for food and Mary for nursing-mother." 
I am quoting from memory, and do not vouch 
for the exact accuracy of the quotation. 



December i8. 
Last night we passed the first two of the 
Azores. These islands were discovered by 
Portuguese navigators about the middle of the 
fifteenth century, and still belong to Portugal. 
They number nine in all, and have a popula- 
tion of some 260,000. About noon we sight 
Pico, the third of the group, and steam by it for 
hours, at a distance of six or seven miles off. 
Though we have sunshine at sea, it is raining 
and misting ashore, and we fail to get a good 
view. However, I have counted as many as 
seven little villages where the snow-white cot- 
tages form into clusters on the sloping shore. 
These islands are of volcanic origin, and the 
conical peak of an extinct volcano seems to 
have given its name to the island we are pass- 
ing by. It is visible for a moment or two, and 
we catch just a glimpse of it as it peeps out of 
a cloud. But it is a coy peak and hastes to 
hide itself beneath its veil of mist. 



FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 119 

December 19. 

I have learned that the mountain we passed 
yesterday rises to a height of 7,460 feet, and 
slopes to the sea at an angle of 40 degrees. 
The bare head of it, uplifted above its bed of 
cloud, and outlined against the blue sky, with 
the sun shining full upon it, is still vividly be- 
fore my imagination. No human eye wit- 
nessed the volcanic upheavel which cast this 
mountain peak up into the clouds out of the 
bosom of the sea. But Captain Tillard of H. 
M. S. " Sabrina " was eye-witness, in 181 1, of 
the rise and extinction of an island in the 
neighbourhood, which reached a height of 410 
feet and was swallowed up by the sea after an 
existence of 119 days. 

For more than a week we have held our 
lonely way on the ocean, no sail seen, no smoke 
of steamer on the far horizon. The sea gulls 
alone bear us company, whether the same birds 
that followed us from the first, or fresh re- 
lays from the pastures of the deep, no one can 
tell. Birds of ocean, foster-children of the 
wandering sea, their home is on the rolling 
wave, their haunts no man may know. But 
the same Providence that feeds the sparrows 



ISO FR0:^1 NEW YORK TO NAPLES 

on the dry land gives food to these rovers on 
the wilderness of waters. 



December 20. 

Our second Sunday at sea. I say the 
Rosary and Litany in the second cabin, where 
there are a number of Italians. I also give 
a short instruction. A wee mite of a boy, with 
the coal black hair and dark complexion of the 
South, keeps eyeing me curiously the while, as 
if wondering how one who looks so little like 
a countryman can speak the language. 

Ever since we got fairly away from the 
American coast we have had summer weather, 
the thermometer ranging from 50 to 70 de- 
grees. The temperature of the water has been 
even higher. One day it was y2 degrees ; this 
morning it was 62. The Gulf Stream is here 
at its widest. Only the short day can bring 
home to us the fact that we are at the winter 
solstice. 



FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 121 

December 21. 

To-day the larger gulls that haunt the sea- 
shore and nest in the rocks are abroad. They 
are tokens that the land is not very far away. 
Sometime to-night we reach Gibraltar, but 
must lie outside till morning, for no ship can 
enter the port of that grim fortress save in the 
day. 

Now that our ocean voyage is nearing its 
end, our thoughts turn back to the loved ones 
we have left behind. The uppermost feeling 
in my own mind at the moment is gratitude, 
first to God for all His goodness, and next to 
the many friends, whether personally known to 
me or not, who have so generously given of 
their means and freed my mind from all anx- 
iety on that score. I feel that I owe them 
more than can be put in words. May the peace 
of God and His blessing abide with them al- 
ways, and may He, in His own way and in His 
own good time, repay them a hundredfold. 

This batch of notes was mailed at Gibraltar. 



FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 
II 

December 22. 



w^g^AST night we reached Gibraltar and 
U^i dropped anchor in the bay. It was an 
impressive sight when first we came in 
view of land. On our right lay Morocco, on 
our left Spain, and the lights on either shore 
became visible about the same time. There are 
not many spots even on this goodly globe of 
ours where one can see two continents. The 
night was lovely, the air almost balmy, the 
stars were all out — ever so many more stars 
than can be seen at home — and we stood long 
on deck and gazed our fill at the splendour of 
the night. Truly the skies declare the glory of 
God and the firmament of heaven shows forth 
the work of His hands. 

This morning, about 8.30, most of the first- 
class passengers landed in a tender. It was 
good to feel one's foot once more on terra firma 
122 



FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 123 

— and surely if there is firm footing on earth it 
is the Rock of Gibraltar. The place I will not 
attempt to describe ; that were quite beyond me. 
Enough to say, and certainly not too much, 
that the panorama which lies before one from 
half-way up the mountain — we had not time to 
go all the way — is one of the grandest that 
anywhere unfolds itself to the eye of man. 
And the city is full of interest. It is the meet- 
ing-place of two continents, the free mart and 
seaport of all nations, the most famous strong- 
hold of the greatest empire under the sun. One 
could wish if one had time, to study the vari- 
ous types of humanity that gather here. By all 
odds the most striking is the turban'd Moor, 
with his swart features, his impassive face, his 
picturesque costume, his gait and carriage not 
lacking in dignity. We enter the principal 
Catholic Church, rather a fine building, and are 
happily able to assist at Mass. We see the 
Bishop for a moment, an Italian Benedictine, a 
native of Siena, a very genial and pleasant 
man. By eleven we are back on board, and by 
noon are steaming around Barracks Point and 
entering the Mediterranean. 



124 FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 

December 27,. 

We have made our best run — 348 knots from 
noon yesterday till noon to-day. Our ship, 
though a splendid seaboat, is not speedy, and 
these two last trips has fallen behind her sched- 
ule. An expert engineer, sent down especially 
from London, has joined us at Gibraltar, and 
we are now making better time. Smooth seas, 
sunny skies, and a summer temperature have 
made this latter part of our voyage extremely 
pleasant, and yet we long for its end, or rather 
we long to reach our goal. Several of the pas- 
sengers left us at Gibraltar, others joined us 
there. It is the way of life, which is all sum- 
med up in a coming and a going and a passing 
away. In truth we do but get glimpses of one 
another as we pass through it. How short is 
all that comes to an end ! " We have not here 
a lasting city, but seek one which is to come." 



December 24. 

Sardinia's snowy mountain tops fringing the 
southern sky. 

The line comes back to me from school days, 
as I gaze on those mountain-tops, bare and 



FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 125 

rugged, and snowless to-day. Sardinia is one 
of the largest islands in the Mediterranean. It 
has a population of more than 700,000. Once 
one of the granaries of Carthage, and later of 
imperial Rome, it is now in great part untilled 
and barren. The natives are more like Span- 
iards than Italians, though the island belongs to 
Italy. In certain districts of the interior the 
people speak the Latin tongue, which serves 
to confute the received notion — never more 
than a wretched half-truth, and not even as 
much — that Latin is a dead language. What, 
the language of the Church Catholic a dead 
language ! Not while she lives, and the eternal 
years of God are hers. 

Christmas at sea; Christmas without the 
wonted Christmas cheer; Christmas far from 
home and friends. But so were Mary and 
Joseph on that first Christmas night in Bethle- 
hem, far from home and friends. And, please 
God, we are going to land in Naples to-mor- 
row in time to celebrate the Christ-Mass. 



126 FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 

December 25. 

Before daylight this Christmas morning we 
are on deck, where we linger most of the time 
till our ship is docked in Naples at 10 a. m. 
The approach to the city from the sea is very 
grand. In the gray dawn we discern the light 
on Ischia, which shows far out at sea. As day 
creeps on, the outline of Vesuvius becomes 
dimly visible through the morning haze. We 
pass some islets, then Pozzuoli and other sub- 
urbs of the queenly city. The sun is now full 
risen ; 't is 

Morn on the waters, and purple and bright 

its light illuminates the lovely bay, gilds the 
heights of Sant' Elmo and the roofs of Chiaia, 
which curves beneath. The docks and shipping 
lie further on, and beyond them rises the giant 
form of dread Vesuvius. Little wonder that 
lovers of panoramic scenery go into raptures 
over this scene. If it is not '' See Naples and 
die," at any rate it is " See Naples and never- 
more forget." The words of the well-known 
boat song come unbidden to one's lips: 



FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES I'ZI 

O dolce Napoli ! 

O suol beatol 
Ove sorridere 

Vuole il creato; 
Tu sei r impero 
Deir armonia; 
Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia! 

O lovely Naples ! 

Favoured ground, 
Where smiling Nature's 

Charms abound ; 
The native home 
Of beauty thou : 
Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia! 

It takes a deal of ceremony to get a big ship 
like ours docked, and a deal of patience to wait 
on an empty stomach for the word to land. At 
last we are ashore, through the custom-house, 
and on our way to the Convent of the Soeurs 
de L'Esperance, No. lo Via Santa Teresa, 
Chiaia. We say Mass at 11.30 a. m. in the 
Church of St. Teresa hard by, which, with the 
adjoining monastery is in the hands of the Dis- 
calced Carmelites. In the afternoon we take a 
walk on the esplanade, which runs along the 



128 FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 

bay, visit the Aquarium, mount the hill to Sant' 
Elmo, and from that commanding height gaze 
upon the city, the bay, and the broken ranges of 
mountains that stud the coast. The native 
band of Chiaia, a great but inharmonious con- 
cert of crowing roosters, awakens us next 
morning long before the dawn, and by 10.30 
we are getting our last glimpse of cloud-capped 
Vesuvius from the window of the Rome ward- 
bound train. 



December 26. 

The country through which we pass for the 
first hour or two after quitting Naples does not 
yield in beauty or fertility even to the plains of 
Lombardy. Every foot of it is tilled; the 
tillage is intensive as well as extensive. Here 
the vine is trailed on great rows of trees, the 
wide spaces between being now green with all 
manner of vegetables, while the stately Italian 
pine lends an added grace and dignity to the 
landscape. As we go further north, the broad 
plain narrows into valleys hemmed in by bare 
and lofty mountains, with here a village cling- 
ing to a rocky slope, and there a lone monastery 
crowning a rugged crest. By noon we reach 



FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 129 

Casino, and presently admiring eyes are raised 
to the giddy height where the great abbey of 
that name, famed in story, lords it over all the 
land. 

As straws show how the wind blows, so very 
little things serve oftentimes to bring racial and 
national characteristics into clear relief. Thus, 
over a plot of green in the public garden at 
Chiaia, I read these formidable words of warn- 
ing: I TRASGRESSORI SARANNO PU- 
NITI A NORMA DI LEGGE, which may be 
rendered: TRESPASSERS SHALL BE 
PUNISHED TO THE LIMIT OF THE 
LAW. We simply and bluntly say : Keep off 
the grass! Again, a railway ticket, on which 
with us are sometimes found the words. Not 
transferable, bears here the blazoned legend, 
La cessione e punita a termini di legge, that is 
to say. The transfer is punishable in the precise 
manner laid down in the law. On the other 
hand, the attempt of some Italian railway offi- 
cial to ape your bluff Englishman, in rendering 
a notice graven in letters of bronze on the win- 
dow of our carriage, E pericoloso sporgersi — 
It is dangerous to put one's head out of the 
window, comes to grief in this ludicrous fash- 



130 FROM NEW YORK TO NAPLES 

ion, similarly cut in bronze, Don't stretch out ! 
Ecco Roma ! We have finished our journey. 
Monday afternoon (Dec. 29) I saw Cardinal 
Gotti. This (Tuesday), evening I go on re- 
treat at the Lazarist Mission House near 
Montecitorio, where I made my retreat for the 
priesthood twenty-five years ago. Sunday 
(Jan. 3) is the day fixed for the consecration. 
There is a hastening of events, as one chapter 
of life draws to a close; and hastily I close this 
last paragraph. 



FROM NAPLES TO CAIRO. 
Wednesday, January 20, 1909. 




day we came to Rome from Assisi. 
At Terni I bought a lunch basket which con- 
tained (i) a paper napkin, (2) a knife, (3) a 
loaf of bread, (4) a cake of sweetbread, (5) 
two slices of meat, (6) a couple of slices of 
sausage, (7) salt, (8) a bit of chicken, (9) 
toothpicks, (10) a bottle of wine, (11) an 
orange, (12) a piece of cheese, (13) some wal- 
nuts — all for two francs. I question whether 
there is any other country in the world where 
you could buy so much food for so little 
money. 

A facchino, or railway porter, at Naples, 
plays us a scurvy trick. We hand him over 
our luggage at the station, and tell him we 
want to get a carriage to take us on board 
the Regina Margherita. After a moment's 
thought, he tells us it is but two minutes' walk, 
and he will take us on board for four francs — 
131 



132 FROM NAPLES TO CAIRO 

which we think rather too much, but agree to 
give. He leads us along dirty streets for at 
least ten minutes, and fetches up finally at a 
landing place, where he and sundry boatmen 
engage in a war of words, to which vehement 
gesticulations lend a sanguinary aspect — all cal- 
culated to impress us with the difficulty of get- 
ting to our steamer. Presently he motions us 
to step into one of the boats, which we, in our 
innocence, do in fear and trembling, while he 
quickly makes off. But the boatman will not 
budge till we have paid him four francs. Then 
he quietly rows us round a ship, and up to a 
dock, where, to our surprise and great disgust, 
we behold our Regina Margherita cosily 
moored! Two Neapolitan ragamuffins extort 
further tribute for carrying our traps on board. 
*' For ways that are dark and tricks that are — 
vain " seems hardly the word, and I leave the 
reader to finish the sentence. 



Thursday, January 21. 

We awake this morning in the Strait of 
Messina, scene of the late frightful catastrophe. 
On our right, but at some distance, is the city 



FROM NAPLES TO CAIRO 133 

of that name, once fair as few cities are, now 
a corpse, torn and disfigured, with the Hght of 
life gone out of it. Farther up the Strait, on 
our left, is ruined Reggio. At a first glance the 
ruins are not seen, but closer scrutiny, with the 
help of a pair of glasses, reveals them. One 
very large building in the upper part of the 
town is still on its feet. In many cases the 
walls are left standing, mute witnesses of the 
ruin within and without. I cannot discern a 
single church tower or steeple in all the 
stricken city. By ten o'clock we are off Cape 
Spartivento (Split-the-wind), the toe of the 
Italian boot, and by twelve the last of the tall 
hills of Southern Italy has faded away on the 
horizon. 

Great is Italian reverence for that which has 
been and is, an admirable sentiment in its way, 
but one which tends to conserve" in being 
things that are and ought not to be. For ex- 
ample. I was awakened this morning at five 
o'clock by a rattling noise which I took to be 
due to some iron fastening having become 
loose. I groped my way on deck, but could see 
nothing. Meeting one of the stewards, I asked 
him what made the noise, " E il temone — 
it is the steering-gear," he made answer, and 



134 FROM NAPLES TO CAIRO 

suggested that I could get a room on the lower 
deck where the noise would not be heard. 
Going on deck after daylight I found the 
clatter was caused by a bolt, which kept the 
rod of the steering-gear in place, having too 
much play. The ship's smith was busied hard 
by with mending a windlass, and I drew his at- 
tention to the matter. He eyed me in mild 
wonderment, and with a characteristic shrug 
of the shoulders, said, '' E sempre stato cosi — 
It has always been like that." So there you 
are! Hundreds upon hundreds of passengers 
have been robbed of their sleep by the clatter 
of this bolt, but what of that? The nuisance 
must go unabated, because — E sempre stato 
cosi! 

P. S. I must set on record the fact that 
the thing has since been remedied : for the 
future, passengers in stateroom No — , of the 
Regina Margherita may rest in peace. 



Friday, January 22. 

All the afternoon we are chased by a thun- 
derstorm, but manage to keep ahead of it. We 
do, however, get the wind that goes with it, 
and there is a deal of motion in the ship, and 



FROM NAPLES TO CAIRO 136 

a deal of squeamishness in certain stomachs. 
By eight o'clock we have left the storm be- 
hind, and by ten have abeam the light on a 
little island ofif Crete, or Candia, as it is also 
called. We think of St. Paul and the hard- 
ships he endured along this coast while he was 
on his way to Rome. The Cretans of his time 
seem to have been a pretty bad lot, for he 
cites " a prophet of their own " as saying that 
they were " always liars, wicked brutes, lazy 
bellies," and vouches for the truth of the in- 
dictment. But there must have been some 
good ones among them, for he made many con- 
verts there, and gave his beloved disciple Titus 
to be their first Bishop. 



Saturday, January 23. 

I've had an interesting talk with two Fran- 
ciscan Fathers, one the Visitor-General of the 
Order, the other the well-known American au- 
thor, Paschal Robinson. We are now within 
ten hours' sail of Egypt — Egypt old in story, of 
which the Sphinx is fitting emblem, land of 
many riddles yet unsolved. We shall reach 
there before dawn to-morrow. 



136 FROM NAPLES TO CAIRO 

Wednesday, January 2y. 

Back on board the Regina Margherita, and 
on the way to Jaffa (Joppa). Early Sunday 
morning we land at Alexandria, say Mass in 
the Franciscan Church there, and at ii a. m. 
take the train for Cairo, which we reach 
some three hours later. The distance is about 
140 miles. We are traversing perhaps the 
most fertile tract of country in the world, 
along the delta of the Nile. It is one vast 
plain as far as the eye can see, from edge 
to edge of the horizon, green with growing 
crops of wheat and cotton. On all sides are 
groves of acacias and lines of stately palm, 
while long caravans of camels, passing parallel 
to the line of railway, lend an added pictur- 
esqueness to the landscape. Egypt, to the in- 
tellect a land of mystery, is to the eye a land 
of beauty — land of the evergreen. And yet 
one misses the snow-capped mountains which 
make of Italy, and still more of Switzerland, 
a fairyland of romance. Here it is always 
summer, and the crops keep growing perenni- 
ally; as many as four crops are raised in the 
year. Little rain falls, and the tiller of the 
soil would wish it were less than that little, 



FROM NAPLES TO CAIRO 137 

for the waters of the Nile irrigate the land, 
and it is the hot sun out of a cloudless sky that 
favours growth. I have said the tiller of the 
soil when I should have rather said the owner, 
who is generally a Jew or a Turk. Your Arab 
Fellah gets his pittance of four piastres (about 
twenty cents) a day, and is better off with that 
than he was before the English came in, when 
the Khedive sent his servants to take heavy 
toll of the ripened crops. 

The Arab subdued the Copt, lineal descen- 
dant of the ancient Egyptians, and was in turn 
subdued by the Turk. He is a picturesque 
figure, with his white turban or red fez, his 
flowing robes, his sandalled, oftentimes bare, 
feet. The women are veiled up to the eyes, 
with a curious covering on the nose, which 
seems to serve no particular purpose and is 
certainly not an ornament. The young of the 
male sex are for the most part of a pleasing 
appearance. But with advancing years the 
features of these people take on a hard and 
somewhat repulsive look, half of submission, 
half of hopelessness, not unlike that which one 
sees in the eyes of that much abused beast of 
burden, the ass, which for six decades of cen- 
turies has borne the whips and scorns of his 



188 FROM NAPLES TO CAIRO 

master, man. It is the fatalism of the race 
that finds expression in that look — the feeling 
that it is of no use kicking against the pricks 
of a relentless destiny. And so the Arab goes 
his way, bearing the burden of life sadly 
but submissively. His whole philosophy is 
summed up in the one word malesh (a as in 
" ma," e as in " edge," both vowels long drawn 
out,) which is forever on his lips : " It doesn't 
matter " — nothing matters in a world where 
so much is amiss and so little can be mended. 
We spend two days in Cairo, during which 
we visit Matarieh, Old Cairo, the citadel and 
famous mosque of alabaster, the museum with 
its mummies, and the pyramids. At Matarieh 
is the well of sweet water which gushed forth, 
tradition has it, when the Holy Family came 
into Egypt, and the sycamore which gave them 
shelter. The present tree is more than three 
hundred years old. At Old Cairo is shown the 
site of the cottage in which dwelt the Holy 
Family. It is in the crypt of an ancient basilica, 
the style of which bespeaks the fifth or sixth 
century. The place is in the hands of the Schis- 
matical Copts; it was the daughter of the 
Coptic priest who unlocked the door for us. 
In Old Cairo one sees the Arab in the primeval 



FROM NAPLES TO CAIRO 1S9 

environment of the unchanging East. All is 
primitive here. Bedouin and Jew, camel, 
donkey, and goat move along pell-mell, jos- 
tling one another in the narrow, crooked, foul- 
smelling streets. I would not advise a visit to 
the market-place just before dinner — it might 
spoil one's appetite. There is some very ancient 
dirt in Old Cairo — and some that is not so an- 
cient. Newman says somewhere that no dirt 
is immortal, but he is speaking of another sort 
of dirt, and, anyhow, he never set foot in this 
Egyptian town, laved but washed not by the 
waters of the Nile. 

In striking contrast to the lowly ass, is that 
other beast of burden, the lordly camel. With 
what lofty disdain it sniffs the air as it looks 
down upon its mean environment — pigmy man 
included. It is a proud creature — proud even 
of the hump on its back. It has been tamed 
by man after a fashion, but not subdued, and 
its eyes belie the obedience that it outwardly 
yields to its puny master. 



Rome, March 9, 1909. 

We returned from the East a couple of 
weeks ago, and are now getting ready to leave 



140 FROM NAPLES TO CAIRO 

for home. We are to sail from Southampton 
for New York on the 31st. Of our visit to the 
Holy Land I write nothing now; I may later, 
but life is uncertain. Of Egypt I might have 
written more, but my notes are lost, as ill luck 
would have it, and I write from memory. 
Had not those notes been lost — in some such 
way we used to put it in boyhood's days when 
spinning sgialachan by the fireside — this letter 
had been longer. 



m 



THROUGH SPAIN. 

WO things led me to leave the " Sax- 
onia" at Gibraltar, and journey 
through the Spanish peninsula. I 
wanted to go to Lourdes, and I wanted to 
drink in the memories of St. Teresa, Spain's 
chief est glory, at the fountain-head. At 
Algeciras, right across from Gibraltar, I set 
foot for the first time on the soil of Spain. The 
train for Ronda was waiting, and I stepped 
on board. The railway passes through 
a wild, mountainous region, rich in traces 
of the Moorish occupation. At Ronda I 
said Mass in the chapel of the Little Sis- 
ters of the Poor. One of the Sisters was 
from Dumfries, in Scotland, and one from our 
own Quebec. I asked them how they came to 
be in Ronda, and they said they were like 
soldiers and had to go where they were sent. 
The Little Sisters have their houses and 
do their Christlike work in many parts of 
the world. Wherever the Catholic Church 
141 



142 THROUGH SPAIN 

is, where the Cross of Christ points heaven- 
ward, there they are at home. 



Andalusia comprises the four old Moorish 

Kingdoms of Jaen, Seville, Granada, and 

Cordova. It is the most fascinating province 

of Spain. The scenic beauty of mountain 

and valley soothes the mind, while the soft 

languorous climate steeps the senses in repose. 

To the voluptuous Mohammedan Andalusia 

was well worth fighting for. And long he 

fought and fiercely ere he gave it back finally 

to the sons of Spain. 

* * * 

The region from Ronda to Seville is wonder- 
fully fertile. So indeed is nearly the whole of 
Spain — land of the vine and the olive, land of 
corn and wheat, land of clear blue skies and 
brilliant sun. Seville, on the banks of the 
Guadalquiver, is a city of great interest, pos- 
sessing a wealth of historical associations. 
It has passed through many vicissitudes from 
the time of the Romans down. The long dom- 
ination of the Moors has stamped an oriental 
character upon it. I said Mass at the Convent 



THROUGH SPAIN 14S 

of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 
founded by the famous Mary Ward. The 
Sisters are commonly known as the Loreto 
Nuns, and in Spain as " Las Madres Ir- 
landesas." They teach a day school in Seville, 
and have a boarding school outside the city. I 
met one who said she was connected by ties of 
kinship with the family of St. Teresa. She 
wrote for me in Spanish a saying of the saint, 
which shows she was human enough to hate 
Seville because it was so hot : " Whoever 
suffers the heat of Seville with patience has 
done penance enough." It seems a pity the 
human element should have been almost wholly 
eliminated from our Lives of the Saints. The 
run of those that have come down to us, es- 
pecially from mediaeval times, are little more 
than an abstract of the heroic virtues practised 
by the saints and the miracles performed by 
them. The servants of God are set up on a 
pedestal so high and so far away that we feel 
as if we could never hope to get near to them 
at all. And yet they had their human side, to 
us intensely interesting, for, to apply in a good 
sense what was first written disparagingly. 

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. 



144 THROUGH SPAIN 

At Seville I visited the monastery of Dis- 
calced Carmelites founded by St. Teresa. The 
present one was built by St. John of the Cross 
in a different locality from that of the original 
monastery, because the situation of this latter 
one was found to be unhealthy. Over the 
grille is a wooden cross erected by St. John, 
the faithful co-worker of St. Teresa, a man of 
lofty spirit kindred to her own. I was shown 
an autograph letter of his, bearing date March 
28, 1586. The handwriting is very legible. 
Of St. Teresa's own relics there are the fol- 
lowing: (i) an autograph letter, signed 
*' Teresa of Jesus," the name being spelled 
as written, not " Theresa," which follows the 
French ** Therese; " (2) a bit of the hair shirt 
worn by the saint; (3) a medicine bottle used 
by her in her last illness — which shows her to 
have been human to the end ; (4) a large white 
woolen mantle that she wore, the mantle of 
her Order; (5) one of her slippers, now so 
richly embroidered that the original cannot be 
seen; (6) last and far the most signal relic of 
all, the autograph original of the Interior 
Castle, or Castle of the Soul, perhaps her 
greatest work. The handwriting is somewhat 



THROUGH SPAIN 145 

peculiar, and the text not easily read, because 
in many cases the syllables are separated. 
This priceless autograph is in an excellent state 
of preservation, bound with heavy plates of 
gold. It came into possession of the monas- 
tery, the nuns told me, through one of the first 
novices of the community, her father, a gentle- 
man of high social standing, having received 
it from a Carmelite priest who was intimate 
in life with St. Teresa. 

The Father Prior of the Discalced Carmel- 
ites at Seville, who speaks English well, having 
spent some years in England as a missionary, 
gave me a story handed down by tradition in 
the Carmelite Order. It shows at once the 
terms of loving familiarity on which St. Teresa 
lived with Our Lord and her ready wit. The 
convent at Burgos, in the north of Spain, was 
her last foundation. She feared to go there in 
mid-winter because of the cold, but Our Lord 
reminded her that He was the source of all 
warmth. The roads being all but impassable, 
she and her companions suffered great hard- 
ships, and at one place were nearly drowned in 



146 THROUGH SPAIN 

the waters of a stream that had overflowed its 
banks. Gently complaining to her Divine 
Spouse, she was told that these were favours 
He reserved for His friends. " That,'' she re- 
joined, " is why your friends are so few ! " 
" She was very saucy with Him," said an Irish 
nun at Madrid, on my reciting this story. 
The playful sally finds its proper setting and 
balance in those other words of the saint that 
we read in her Foundations, ch. xxxi : *' O 
my Lord, how true it is that you repay with a 
cross those who do you a service! But what 
an inestimable treasure that cross is to those 
who truly love you, were it but given them at 
once to realize its value ! And yet, they would 
not have sought to possess themselves of the 
treasure, the price to be paid seeming at the 
moment too great." So hard is it for us to 
bear what presses here and now upon us, even 
when we are quite persuaded that every trial 
is a crucible for the minting of heaven's gold. 
* * * 



I did but pass through Madrid on my way 
to Avila. The city is modern, having none of 
the quaintness of other Spanish towns. The 



THROUGH SPAIN 147 

Loreto Nuns have a convent and school in the 
outskirts. Even the Httle tots must speak Eng- 
lish. A course at this convent is greatly de- 
sired for their daughters by Spanish mothers 
since Princess Victoria came to share v^ith 
Alfonso the throne of Spain. 



About midway between Madrid and Avila, 
with great ridges of rock above and around it. 
stands the palace of the Escorial, built by 
Philip the Second, husband of Mary Tudor. 
It compares with the pyramids of Egypt in 
size and solidity. It is at once a palace, a 
monastery, a church, and a mausoleum. There 
are not in all the world more gorgeous tombs 
than those that here enclose the ashes of the 
kings and queens of Spain. In the treasury of 
the monastery I saw the little statue of the 
Blessed Virgin before which Pope St. Pius V 
prayed during the battle of Lepanto. Queen 
Elizabeth II has decked it with a crown of 
brilliants. In the library, among manuscripts 
of priceless value, are four of the autograph 
writings of St. Teresa, the Book of the Foun- 
dations, the Manner of Visiting Convents, the 



148 THROUGH SPAIN 

Way of Perfection, and the Life by herself. 
All these were collected, not without difficulty, 
by the royal founder of the Escorial, who died 
sixteen years after St. Teresa, in 1598. 
* * * 



Avila, famed evermore as the birthplace 
and home of St. Teresa, is situated in the 
centre of the province of that name, west of 
Segovia and south of Valladolid. The hill on 
which it stands rises out of an undulating coun- 
try to the north, and, on the south, overlooks 
a broad plain which stretches away almost as 
far as the eye can see to a range of mountains 
known as the Sierras of Avila. The waters 
of the Adaja river bathe the foot of the cliffs 
to the west. On the southwestern slope of the 
hill, facing the wide extent of meadow land and 
the distant mountains, stands the old home 
of St. Teresa, enclosed within a Dominican 
monastery. Here one is showm the room 
where she was born, now a chapel in which the 
Blessed Sacrament is kept. Here also, but 
some feet under the ground — for old things 
have a way of sinking into the earth — , is the 
little garden where, a child of seven, she played 



THROUGH SPAIN 149 

at being a nun, and with her brother, four 
years her senior planned to seek the crown of 
martyrdom among the Moors. '' We settled," 
she tells us, ''to go together to the country of 
the Moors, begging our way there for the love 
of God, that we might be beheaded there." 
" I ran away," was the naive excuse precocious 
piety gave her mother, '' because I wanted to 
see God, and one cannot do that without 
dying." 

* * * 



Avila is little changed since Teresa de 
Ahumada and Rodriquez de Cepeda stole 
softly along its cobbled streets and left its lofty 
portals behind, in the gray dawn of that sum- 
mer's day, some four hundred years ago. The 
stones, since worn by many feet, are the same 
that they trod; the stout walls that defied 
Moorish assault still look proudly down upon 
the stranger that enters at the gate. Out- 
side the walls are two religious houses 
which are fragrant with the memories of St. 
Teresa. One is the Convent of St. Joseph, the 
other the Monastery of the Incarnation. The 
latter stands on a hill a few hundred yards to 



150 THROUGH SPAIN 

the north of the town. There Teresa first 
made her vows, and there she Hved for twenty- 
seven years, three of which she was Prioress. 
Among her reHcs there are ( i ) a Httle water 
jug, (2) a crucifix borne by her when she w^ent 
forth to found new convents, (3) the key of 
her cell, (4) a document concerning the dowTy 
of a religious, signed by the saint and the four 
nuns who established with her the new foun- 
dation. I sat in the chair, by the side of the 
grille, where St. Peter of Alcantara and St 
Francis Borgia conversed with her on spiritual 
subjects. It was there that a nun, happening 
along one day, found herself and St. John of 
the Cross raised above the ground in an ecstasy 
of contemplation. The quick-witted Teresa 
put it all on her companion. *' See," she said, 
" what comes of talking with Father John ! " 
* * * 



St. Joseph's of Avila, now known as the 
Convent of St. Teresa, is on the east side, just 
outside the walls, but within the town limits. 
It was the saint's first foundation, the be- 
ginning of the Reform. Here are several 
relics, among others a tambourine on which 



THROUGH SPAIN 151 

the saint used to play. Her body lies in- 
corrupt at Alba de Tormes, where she 
died. The morning I went to say Mass at St. 
Joseph's, I was accompanied by two English 
ladies, a mother and daughter, Anglicans both, 
very High Church, and very much interested 
in all that related to St. Teresa. They knelt 
to the Blessed Sacrament on entering, and as- 
sisted at Mass with every mark of devotion. 
We afterwards spoke with the nuns at the 
grating. They showed us the relics of their 
holy foundress, and bade us be sure to visit 
the chapel built by her in connection with her 
first foundation. I had told the mother the 
night before of the sweet odor I perceived 
when, at the Escorial, the Augustinian Father 
had opened the glass case that contained the 
four autograph writings of St. Teresa. Just as 
we entered the chapel I felt the same sweet 
odor, and asked the mother if she perceived it. 
''Yes," she said, "but it is a very elusive 
odor." A nun at Seville had spoken to me of 
the odor exhaled by the relics of the saint, 
and had said that some perceived it but others 
didn't, and that even to the same person 
it was perceptible at times, at other times 



152 THROUGH SPAIN 

not. It seemed to me something like the odor 
of incense, and yet I am quite sure it was not 
that. I was much impressed with the fact that 
it was the self-same odor I perceived in those 
two widely distant places. 
* * * 



At the hotel in Avila I met an American 
lady who had not visited her native land in five 
years. She was so taken with Europe, she 
said, that she thought she should never cross 
the Atlantic again. Perhaps the recent terrible 
happenings may have made her change her 
mind. The conversation turning on St. Te- 
resa, I said I looked upon her as being, after 
the Blessed Virgin, the greatest woman saint 
that ever lived. My American friend believed 
she must yield the palm to St. Catherine of 
Siena. And truly the latter may contest the 
palm in the outer world of action. But I was 
thinking rather of the inner world of the 
spirit, where piety rears " a building 
of God, a house not made with hands.'' 
No one has thrown clearer or more 
copious light upon the things of that inner 
world than the author of " The Way of 



THROUGH SPAIN 153 

Perfection" and "The Castle of the Soul." 
For the rest, " star differs from star in bright- 
ness," and it is not for us, short-sighted and 
dim of vision as we are, to say which shines 
with the greatest lustre. Stars there are, too, 
in the firmament of the Church that have never 
swum into our ken. We shall see them when 
we have passed hence, even as those who pass 
to the other side of the globe behold the South- 
ern Cross. — Mrs. Hemans's lines on that bril- 
liant constellation come to one unbidden : they 
are put in the mouth of some son or daughter 
of Spain: 

Thou recallest the ages when first o'er the main 
My fathers unfolded the ensign of Spain. 
And planted their faith in the regions that see 
Its unperishing symbol emblazoned in thee. 

Shine on — my own land is a far distant spot, 
And the stars of thy sphere can enlighten it 

not, 
And the eyes that I love, though e'en now they 

may be 

O'er the firmament wandering, can gaze not 

on thee ! 

* * * 



154 THROUGH SPAIN 

On leaving Avila I visited Valladolid. To 
me the most interesting place there was the 
Scots College, once a home of the Jesuits and 
their house of studies in the days of the great 
Suarez. Here many of the men who kept the 
torch of faith burning in the Scottish High- 
lands during the dark night of persecution re- 
ceived their education for the priesthood. The 
Very Reverend Alexander MacDonald, V. G., 
who died at Mabon, Cape Breton, in 1865, left 
Valladolid for Lismore, Scotland, in 18 16, as 
the college records bear witness. It was from 
him I got in baptism the light of faith. 
* * * 

I slept at San Sebastian on my way to 
Lourdes. Of my visit to that famous shrine I 
write elsewhere. 




LOURDES REVISITED. 

Victoria, B. C, August, 1914. 

visited Lourdes again in May of the 
present year. Much water had passed 
under the old stone bridge that spans 
the Gave since last I gazed on that swirling 
stream, and listened to the hoarse music of its 
voice. Lourdes has grown a great deal in 
these fourteen years. The old town has wid- 
ened its bounds on the right bank of the river, 
and on the left the low meadow land is covered 
with shops and hotels. These, indeed, may be 
said to make up the town. In the shops, as I 
also noted when last I was there, the wares 
are almost wholly of a devotional character — 
a fact that gave rise to the following incident. 
The joke that gives it point is at my own ex- 
pense. 

I left my soap at Saint Sebastian, the last 

town in Spain ere you cross into France. 

It may be needful to tell the reader that the 

traveller in Europe has to carry his own soap. 

155 



156 LOURDES REVISITED 

I wanted to bu}^ that necessary article in 
Lourdes, but did not know where to get it. 
The stores that Hned the streets on either side 
seemed to offer nothing but beads, medals, stat- 
ues, etc. What was worse, I could not for the 
life of me recall the French word for soap. I 
tried to get at it through the Italian '* sapone." 
Cutting off the final vowel, I entered the near- 
est store, and boldly asked for " sapon." The 
salesmaid at first looked puzzled. But on my 
repeating the order, her face broke into a 
smile of comprehension. Quickly she sped to 
a corner of the store, and thence brought me 
a tiny statue of St. Paul! '' Sapon," no doubt, 
sounded more like " Saint Pol " than like the 
elusive " savon " that I had tried in vain to get 
hold of. Going into another shop, where a win- 
dow bore the legend " English and German 
spoken," I asked for soap. They told me the 
girl who was to wait on English-speaking cus- 
tomers had not yet joined the staff. I inquired 
in Italian if they knew that language, and to 
my great relief was answered in the affirma- 
tive, and directed to a little shop down a near 
street, where I bought an excellent piece of 
soap that is still in my possession. 

Man has wrought many changes in Lourdes. 



LOURDES REVISITED 157 

Only the works of God remain unchanged. 
The Gave flows merrily on, singing its way to 
the sea. Round about are the eternal hills, 
which change not. The grotto in the rocks of 
Massabielle still looks out over the hurrying 
river, even as Our Lady, from her quiet niche, 
smiles down upon the ever flowing and ebbing 
multitude at her feet. How mighty has been 
that tide of pilgrimage since last I knelt before 
the statue of Our Lady there! Day by day, 
month by month, year by year, it keeps re- 
newing itself, flowing ever onward like the 
leaping waters of the Gave. 

I reached Lourdes on the eve of Saturday, 
May 10, and stayed there over Sunday. The 
great Swiss national pilgrimage was there, in 
eight trains; a pilgrimage from Metz in two 
trains ; a mixed pilgrimage from Strassburg, in 
two trains; the seventeenth pilgrimage from 
Namur in three trains; the ninth national 
Bavarian pilgrimage in two trains; and the 
ninth Austrian, also in two trains. There were 
in all some fifteen thousand pilgrims, of 
many nations and many tongues. But one was 
the faith that drew them thither; one the de- 
votion. And one was the hymn they sang in 
unison in the marvellous torchlight procession 



158 LOURDES REVISITED 

that night. I stood watching it as it wound its 
way down the great oval pathway through the 
meadow of Lourdes. The spire of the stately 
basilica that stands over the Grotto, the grand 
fa9ade, and the Church of the Rosary beneath, 
were all ablaze. Then ten thousand pilgrims, 
a very torrent of moving lights, poured into 
the pathway, circled slowly round it, sway- 
ing and singing as they passed along. The 
sounds that rose upon the night air, under the 
listening stars, were as the voices of the sea. 

A thought that saddens comes to me as I 
write these words, after three short months. 
Many, many of the men who walked side by 
side in that procession have ere now met face 
to face on European battlefields. Man is part 
beast, and part angel. The angel is of God, 
the beast of the earth, earthy. And the beast 
that is in man, true to its nature, fights its fel- 
lows; the angel can but weep over the fallen 
and the slain. 

W^hat a sight that was of sick and suffering 
humanity before the statue of Our Lady in 
the rocks of Massabielle! It seemed as if all 
the ills that poor human flesh is heir to were 
brought together there. One had not the heart 



LOURDES REVISITED 159 

to ask favours for oneself, so piteous was the 
spectacle of so much misery unrelieved. For 
out of the thousands that yearly seek a cure at 
Lourdes but few are made whole. Yet all are 
renewed in spirit, and strengthened to bear 
their ailments with Christian resignation. It 
is not that they want faith; it is rather that 
God does not will to free even those who have 
faith from all evil here below. " It is ap- 
pointed unto man once to die." Through many 
tribulations, through the gates of death itself, 
we must enter into the Kingdom of God, King- 
dom of endless ages, whereon, as St. Augus- 
tine so beautifully expresses it, " sits the un- 
troubled light, and the peace of God that 
passeth all understanding." Meanwhile in 
patience we shall possess our souls. 

A year ago one came to Lourdes, a girl from 
a town in France, sick beyond all human hope 
of recovery. She had a complication of mala- 
dies, including consumption in its last stage. 
Her doctor, an unbeliever, deemed it madness 
in her to undertake the long journey. But go 
she would. He told her, if she were cured, he 
himself would go with her next year to 
Lourdes. They were both of them there the 



160 LOURDES REVISITED 

Sunday I was there — she to thank Our Lady 
for the wondrous favour, he to ponder upon 
the superhuman power that wrought it, and to 
find, let us hope, healing and peace for his soul. 

In a corner of France, amid the foothills and 
under the shadow of the Pyrenees, Lourdes lies 
sheltered with its holy shrine. Afar it lies 
from the madding strife that now ravages and 
reddens with blood many a fair field that was 
white unto harvest. Let us pray Our Lady 
that the war may soon be over — that He who 
chid the wild waves on the sea of Galilee may 
now stay the fierce onset of angry passions, 
and bring a great calm. 



A FEW MORE STRAY LEAVES AND 
TRACES. 



m 



HE passage from New York to Gib- 
raltar took twelve days. The " Sax- 
onia " is slow, but sure and steady. 
There was little sea-sickness, and less cause 
for it, but small-pox broke out in the steer- 
age our first day at sea. The child — for a 
child it was that showed the dread symptoms 
— was at once placed in the isolation hospital. 
We all had to be vaccinated, and the " Sax- 
onia " steamed into the harbour of Funchal, 
Madeira, flying the yellow-jack. There was, 
however, little fear of infection among our 
fellow-passengers in the first cabin, as became 
apparent the night before we made port. 
There was a dance on the deck, which we 
were all invited to join. Conspicuous on the 
list of dances that lay before each passenger 
as we sat down that evening to the dinner table 
was " the vaccination waltz ! " Next morning 
a pathetic little wooden box, roughly carpen- 
tered, was landed at Madeira. It contained the 
161 



162 A FEW MORE STRAY 

remains of the little child which had died in 
port — not of small-pox, which had turned out 
after all to be chicken-pox — but of two hard- 
boiled eggs administered by a fond mother dur- 
ing convalescence. So at least the story ran on 
board ship, though I fancy it was just made up 
to free us the more completely from appre- 
hension. 



Madeira is one of the loveliest islands of 
the sea. The waters around it are of the deep- 
est blue, and its sloping fields of the richest ver- 
dure. Funchal, the capital city, is on the 
shores of a winding bay. The houses spot- 
lessly white, the roofs red-tiled, form a pleas- 
ing contrast of colour with the green of the 
fields and the tropical trees around about them. 
Madeira belongs to Portugal. The inhabitants 
are almost all of them Catholics, and very 
devout. The storm of persecution that so lately 
burst over the mother country has spared this 
distant daughter in her sea-girt home. 

Quitting the boat at Gibraltar, and passing 
by rail through Spain and the south of France, 
I reached Rome before the middle of May. 



LEAVES AND TRACES 163 

Rome is greatly changed since I knew it first, 
and changed, I am free to own, for the better. 
New streets have been opened, old ones 
straightened and widened, and all the streets 
are fairly well kept. The city has taken over 
the magnificent Villa Borghese, and turned it 
into a park, to which access is given, out of the 
very heart of Rome, from piazza Barberini, 
along a broad highway, across the Pincian Hill. 
The deep valley beyond is bridged by a lofty 
embankment. No city is more favoured than 
Rome in its parks and fountains. 



Rome is greatly changed, too, spiritually, 
and for the better. There is more of devotion 
in the churches ; more of respect, or at least of 
outward respect, for the pilgrim in the streets. 
In Rome ecclesiastical things are pretty much 
as they have always been. There is a saying 
familiar to the theologian, Comnmnia vilescunt 
— common things are held uncommonly cheap. 
What so common as the priest in Rome! 
None so poor as to do him reverence. Even a 
bishop on occasion does not fare much better. 
Apropos of this I have been told a story, which 
to quote the well-worn Italian saying, Se non 



164 A FEW MORE STRAY 

e vero, e hen trovato — if not true, is a clever 
take-off, and may serve to point a moral. 

Last winter there was a grand function in 
the Sixtine Chapel. The Holy Father was 
there, and the place was packed with people. 
They kept pressing forward in their eagerness 
to get near the Pope. At last the papal guard 
turned their backs to the multitude, and held 
them there. A belated Cardinal tried to force- 
his way through, but couldn't. Taking one of 
the guard by the shoulder, he told him who he 
was and that he had to get by. '' Oh, pardon 
me, your Eminence," cried the soldier, greatly 
taken aback, '' I thought you were only a 
Bishop ! " 

The public consistory of May the 28th, 
viewed simply as a pageant, was well worth 
waiting for. Cardinals and bishops, in their 
scarlet and purple robes, lined the front seats, 
and the elect Cardinals, in gorgeous panoply, 
brought up the rear of a long procession. The 
ambassadors to the Holy See and the heads 
of the old noble families of Rome, were con- 
spicuous in seats specially reserved for them. 



LEAVES AND TRACES 165 

But what struck one as without parallel in so 
august an assemblage was this singular cir- 
cumstance : a peasant from Riese sat in the 
throne of Peter, and three other peasants from 
Riese, two sisters and a niece, who bore about 
them all the marks of their peasant ancestry, 
occupied the place of honour in a tribune hard 
by. It was the apotheosis of democracy. 
The like had never been seen at the Papal 
Court, at least since the swineherd Sixtus, the 
fifth of that name, refused to receive, when 
dressed as a fine lady, the mother whom he 
afterwards welcomed when she came back to 
him in her peasant costume. 



It is not easy to gain admittance to a papal 
consistory, and thereb}^ hangs another tale. 
From immemorial time the noble Roman fam- 
ilies have a sort of prescriptive right to a large 
number of admission tickets, which they use 
in part themselves, and in part, it is said, offer 
for sale in the hotels of Rome. These are 
eagerly bought up by tourists and travellers, 
who are largely Protestant. Hence it comes to 
pass that while a bishop often cannot get a 
ticket for an attendant priest, hundreds of 



166 A FEW MORE STRAY 

Protestants and unbelievers hold prominent 
places at the consistory. The story is of the 
time when Pasquino (whence our English 
"pasquinade") entertained the Romans with 
his clever satirical skits. They took the form 
of cartoons, and were placed during the night 
at the foot of a statue to which all Rome was 
wont to take its way to amuse itself of a morn- 
ing. After one of the public consistories, this 
is what greeted the eye of Rome. Two young 
men are hurrying to the Vatican. Some curi- 
ous passer-by bids them the time of day, and 
would know why they hasten so. " We are on 
our way," they say, '' to the Vatican, to the 
consistory." " But where is the use of your 
going; you can't get in." "Oh, that's all 
right," rejoin the confident pair, " we turned 
Protestant yesterday ! " 



On leaving Rome I visited Assisi, fraught 
with memories of St. Francis and St. Clare. 
Loreto, also, with its Holy House, and from 
Ancona crossed to Tersatto, near Fiume, where 
the Angels first set down the House of the Vir- 
gin when they came with it over the sea. I 
recrossed the Adriatic to Venice in an Austrian 



LEAVES AND TRACES 167 

boat. Four of us slept in one small stateroom, 
packed like sardines. I could barely squeeze 
into my berth, and passed the night in dread 
lest the big burly German (known to be such 
by his gutturals) who occupied the upper berth 
should fall through and quite flatten me out. 
My sympathies have always been with the un- 
der dog, and henceforth will be more than ever 
— for I was the under sardine ! 



We came to Venice in the early morning 
when the newly risen sun had turned every- 
thing into gold. There she sat a queen upon 
the waters. Small wonder that one Joseph 
Sarto should have pined, and pines still, in his 
prison-palace of the Vatican, for this old home 
of his on the sea, which it is his inclement des- 
tiny never more to set eyes on. Venice is a 
city without streets. Instead there are canals 
and corridors — canals where glide the swan- 
like gondolas, and corridors between the 
houses, so narrow that people living on oppo- 
site sides may shake hands across. 

While I sat writing the last paragraph the 
life of Pope Pius the Tenth was slowly ebbing 



168 A FEW MORE STRAY 

away. He was passing to the better world, 
where the wicked cease from troubling, and 
the weary are at rest. He had fought the good 
fight, he had kept the faith. He had laboured 
while yet it was day, knowing that the night 
Cometh when no one can labour more. His 
was a truly simple and apostolic life. He had 
a single eye to the glory of God and the good 
of his fellow-man. K ever there was one who 
could say that he sought not the office, but 
that the office sought him, he was the Pope 
whose loss we mourn. He has done an endur- 
ing work for God and the Church, and has left 
an inspiring example of a life untainted with 
worldliness and fragrant with faith and good 
works. Eternal rest grant to him, Lord, and 
let light perpetual shine upon him! 



I spent a night in Domodossola just beyond 
the beautiful Lago Maggiore, in the Italian 
Alps. Here the Rosminian Fathers have a col- 
lege for boys, largely attended. A unique fea- 
ture of the museum is a room filled with la- 
belled specimens of the different kinds of stone 
taken from the great Simplon tunnel — an al- 
most endless variety. Beyond the Simplon, on 



LEAVES AND TRACES 169 

the Swiss side, the train, which is driven by 
electricity, passes along the side of a precipi- 
tous mountain. An Alpine river winds its way 
two thousand feet below. From the window 
of the train I caught a glimpse of a flying 
aeroplane, about midway down. Far beyond 
on the other side the eye rested on great fields 
of untrodden snow. The valleys of Switzer- 
land are for the most part so narrow that it 
is easy to get a good view of the wonderful 
mountain scenery. 



At Berne I had just time to pay a visit to 
my old acquaintances — I dare not say friends 
— the bears. There are as many as seven of 
them now in the underground enclosure across 
the Aar river, the cubbies that I saw on my 
first visit having grown into bears. I bought 
one or two specimens of the beast in wood, and 
saw many more that would have made inter- 
esting additions to my former repertoire- 
bears painting, bears playing cards, bears play- 
ing the piano, bears working in wood, bears 
smoking long German pipes, bears nursing sick 
bears, and bears rejoicing in the birth of cub- 
bies! 



170 A FEW MORE STRAY 

From Berne I passed to Strassburg, from 
Strassburg along the banks of the Rhine to 
Cologne, and from Cologne to Aix-la-Chapelle, 
known to me from schooldays as a place where 
peace treaties were signed. Peace then 
brooded on the land, a land of plenty, smiling 
with promise of a rich harvest. But on every 
hand were soldiers, and the whole nation ap- 
peared to be cast in a military mould. What- 
ever the outcome of the terrible war into which 
Europe is plunged to-day, the future historian 
will record and lay due stress on this signifi- 
cant fact, that Germany led the world in war- 
like preparation, and that other nations did but 
strive to keep pace with her. 

The return voyage, on the Empress of Brit- 
ain, was almost without incident. One day of 
storm we had, in mid-ocean, when our big ship 
was tossed about and great seas broke over 
her. A day or two later, on the banks of New- 
foundland, an iceberg was sighted almost di- 
rectly ahead. It looked ghostlike as it loomed 
up out of the haze, and the air for miles around 
was chill as winter. I left the ship at Rim- 
ouski, about sunrise of a July morning, close 
to the spot where her sister ship went down a 
few weeks before with almost every soul on 



LEAVES AND TRACES 171 

board. At Rimouski I took an eastbound train 
to my old home, feeling, as I never felt before, 
the force of Sir Walter's undying lines : 

Breathes there a man with soul so dead 
Who never to himself hath said, 
This is my own, my native land ! 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd, 
As home his footsteps he hath turned 
From wandering on a foreign strand. 



WORKS BY THE 

RT. REV. ALEXANDER MacDONALD. D.D., 

Bishop of Victoria, B.C. 

The Symbol of the Apostles. 

A Vindication of the Apostolic Authorship of the Creed 

on the Lines of Catholic Tradition. By Rt. Rev. Alex. 

Macdonald, D. D., Bishop of Victoria, B. C. 12mo. 377 pp. 

Cloth, net, 1.25; full morocco, net, 2.00 

" A splendid work." — Ecclesiastical Review. 

" In point of originality and brilliant achievement one of 
the most notable books that has come to a reviewer's desk 
in many a day." — Catholic Record. 

" I am too much impressed by the cumulative strength 
of it to stand off as a doubting critic to find possible flaws." 
Rt. Rev. Dr. MacNeil, of St. George, N. F. L. 

•' A splendid example of critical scholarship." — The 
Guidon. 

" We have read it twice, parts of it oftener. We are of 
the opinion that if some of those who felt called upon to 
review it had done the same they would hardly have come 
to the conclusion with respect to it which they seem to 
have reached. Dr. MacDonald's splendid history of the 
Apostles' Creed has a fresh interest now for its closing 
chapter dealing with the name ' Catholic ' and when and 
how it came to be the distinct title of the Church." — Rev. 
L. A. Lambert, LL. D., in New York Freeman's Journal. 

" The author, a brilliant alumnus of the Roman Seminary 
of Propaganda, and a highly appreciated contributor to 
several Catholic periodicals, is at once a metaphysician and 
a scholar. His refutation of Harnack's theory concerning 
the Creed bears the impress of the twofold quality of his 
subtle and searching mind. We believe the refutation in 
question is complete." — Mgr. L. A. Paquet, of Laval 
University. 

'• It is a relief to come across a work like Bishop 
MacDonald's Symbol of the Apostles, after the dreary waste 



of academic discussions that centre about this well-wora 
eoDfession of Christian faith." — Very Rev. Dr. Shahan, la 
The Catholic University Bulletin. 

*' The student, be he a Roman Catholic, or a catholic- 
minded Presbyterian, or an out-and-out disciple of John 
Calvin, will read Dr. MacDonald's Symbol of the Apostles 
with interest and not without profit." — The Presbyterian 
Witness. 

"The Symbol of the Apostles by Dr. MacDonald is a 
work of great erudition, and I congratulate the publishers 
on the way they have executed their part." — N. C. Matz, 
Bishop of Denver. 

A work of great merit and standard erudition. — Most 
Rev. Dr. Begin, Archbishop of Quebec. 

A contribution of the highest value to the historic aspects 
of our belief. — Bishop MacDonald, of Charlottetown, P. E. I. 

It is a learned work and should be in the library of 
every priest and educated layman. — Bishop Horstman, of 
Cleveland. 

A scholarly and edifying book. — The Catholic Columbian, 

Based on original research and built up by critical 
acumen and masterly scholarship. — The Catholic Record. 

Dr. MacDonald shows a very full and accurate knowl- 
edge of the early writers whose works have a bearing on 
the subject .... and by a process of keen and logical 
reasoning, builds up a new defence too solid and strong for 
the artillery of historical criticism. — The Cross. 

Bishop MacDonald has given us in this volume a painstak- 
ing sr'uolarly work, .... from a point of view not 
so much in evidence in the present day discussion of the 
subject as that which it opposes. — The Homiletic Monthly. 

The book is well indexed, and there is a list of the 
authorities consulted in its preparation. His readers will 
thank him for yielding to the request to add the very 
satisfactory closing chapter on the Catholic name. — The 
Boston Pilot. 



Tl&e Symbol in Sermons* 

— i^— ^— — ma— a8ina»aiiiiiii«iiiii mii iiiw» 

A aeries of Twenty-five Short Sermons on the Articles 
of th% Creed. By Rt. Rev. Alex. Macdonald, D. D. 12mo. 
214 pp. net, 1.00 

" Its chapters are pregnant with thought. . . . The 
work is well done, clear, definite, and complete." — The 
Catholic Transcript. 

" It is lucid and easy in style, concise in arrangement, and 
magnetic in its erudition." — The Catholic Register. 

" This work is all it professes to be. It might also be 
styled excellent sermons on the Apostles' Creed." — The 
Church Progress. 

" We recommend this volume to our readers for their 
use and as a most appropriate gift to the inquiring 
Protestant." — The Catholic Record. 

" We think that this volume of Dr. MacDonald's will 
take a high place among works of this class. Altogether, 
in matter and method, these sermons are well suited both 
to serve as sources to which preachers can have recourse, 
and models for their own work." — The Homiletic Monthly. 

The Sacrifice of the Mass. 



" This is a book of the highest merit, and one that 
should be in the hands of both the clergy and laity." — The 
Catholic Columbian-Record. 

"Three chapters are headed: 1. The True Idea of 
Sacrifice, 2. History of the Sacrificial Idea in the Mass. 
3. The Sacrificial Idea in the Mass. A careful analysis of 
each chapter precedes the work, and an appendix of quota- 
tions is added." — The Sacred Heart Review. 

" Theologians will find this book luminous and interest- 
ing. — The Pittsburg Catholic. 



"This explanation sets the reality of the sacrifice of the 
Mass in a new light and defends it against the more or 
less rationalist theories that have been recently broached. 
No doubt this book, like the Symbol of the Apostles, will 
excite comment." — The Canadian Measeyigcr of the Sacred 
Heart. 

" To us the most luminous part of it seems his discussion 
of the Last Supper and its relation to the Cross. We 
are all so prone or so impelled by our limitations to regard 
truth as if it were a set of separate texts, like people walk- 
ing in a w^ooded country where they can only see small 
spaces one by one, that the^most helpful writer is he who 
guides us to an eminence where we can see that things 
we thought diverse are but one or parts of one wiiole." — 
The Casket. 

" A second reading has deepened the first impression. I 

really think you have made a valuable contribution to 

theological science." — Right Rev. Dr. MacNeil ; Bishop of 
St. George, Nfld., in a letter to the author. 

" The Sacrifice of the Mass," by the Rt. Rev. Alex. Mac- 
Donald, D. D., is " an historical and doctrinal inquiry into 
the nature of the Eucharistic Sacrifice." Within the compass 
of six score pages Bishop MacDonald gives a succinct, 
scholarly, and adequate demonstration of the fact that the 
traditional Catholic conception of Holy Mass as being 
identically the same Sacrifice primarily offered at the 
Last Supper and on the Cross — a conception attested to by 
a cloud of witnesses throughout the centuries — is the very 
truth. As in the author's previous works, " The Symbol 
of the Apostles " and '* The Symbol in Sermons," there is in 
this volume abundant evidence of many-sided erudition, 
trenchant logic, luminous exposition, and that suggsstive- 
neps of reserved power which stamps the work of the well- 
equipped scholar. The book is brought out in neat and 
attractive form by the Christian Press Association, New 
York, — Ave Maria. Fine cloth binding, net 1.00 



Religious Questions of the Day. Vol. I. 

By Rt. Rev. Alex. Macdonald, D. D., Bishop of Victoria, 
12mo. eloth net 1.00 

Volume I. 203 pp., Is a book of five essays and two 
appendixes treating of The Biblical Question — The Virgin 
Birth — Mary Ever a Virgin — The Assumption of the Virgin 
Mary, and Bridging the Grave. 

" Every student of theology vi^ill be stimulated by the book, 
even if one must differ at times from the learned author 
* * * the author displays a fine taste and a wide acquain- 
tance with purely secular literature. — Catholic World. 

" Simple and direct are his books, but what a world of 
toil they represent. * * They are, indeed, testimonies to a 
devotion to Sacred Science, and they are also beyond ques- 
tion proofs of a many-sided erudition which is as edifying 
as it is instructive. — Catholic Record. 

" We recommend this work unreservedly to our educated 
Catholic laymen." — The Oiiidon. 

" In forceful presentation of solid arguments and fresh- 
ness of color given to oldtime questions, they (the essays) 
are equally meritorious." — Ave Maria. 

Religious Questions of the Day. Vol. II. 

Dr. MacDonald discusses the Symbol in the Netv Testa^ 
ment — The Discipline of the Secret — The Ethical Aspect of 
Bribery — A Notable Book (the much read book of Professor 
Drummond on " Natural Law in the Spiritual World,") and 
The Imagitiation. 223 pp. cloth net 1.00 

" It is in the firm mastering of those permanent truths — 
the wisdom, principles, divine and human, the clear insight 
into their meaning and bearings, together with the practical 
method of their application to certain subjects now occupy- 
ing men's mind — it is in these qualities here in acta sccundo 
that constitute the permanent worth of these essays. * * ♦ 
set forth with the author's characteristic precision, per- 
spicuity, and beauty of diction." — Ecclesiastical Review. 

" Treated with a dignity and sureness sadly wanting in 
the work of the apologists outside the Church who have 



taken flight so ignominiously before the onslaughts of tbe 
' higher criticism.' * * * Few present day writers on 
Catholic topics are clearer or more satisfying than Dr. 
MacDonald."— TTie Pilot. 

Religions Questions of the Day. Vol. III. 

Some Modernistic Theoeies and Tendencies Exposed, 
By the Rt. Rev. Alexander MacDonald, D. D. Vol. III. 
12mo. 329 pp. net, 1.00 

Contents: The Gospel Narratives; Are They Really 
Discrepant? The Catholic Encyclopaedia and the Higher 
Criticism — Alleged Process of Evolution — False in Name and 
in Fact— The Bible and Modern Difficulties — The Bible and 
the Higher Criticism — Biblical Difficulties — A Novel with a 
Purpose — History and Inspiration — ^The Firmament — The 
Atonement — God's Foreknowledge of Moral Evil — ^The Date 
of Our Lord's Birth. — Mgr. Duchesne and the Date of 
Nativity — The Holy House of Loreto — The Materials of 
the Holy House — The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin 
Mary and a Charge of Modernism — The Assumption of the 
Blessed Virgin Mary — Papal and Conciliar Infallibility — 
St. Augustine and Evolution — The Apostles' Creed — A 
Critique in the Dublin Review — The Eucharistic Sacrifice — 
Grace the Life of God in the Soul. 

Meditations on the Blessed Virgin. 



From the German of Rev. Francis Gabrlni, S. J. New 
edition carefully revised by the Rt. Rev. Alexander Mac- 
Donald, D. D., Bishop of Victoria, Canada. 

This book will fill a long-felt want and may be used dur- 
ing the month of May at the evening devotions. Each 
Meditation is divided into Three Points. This plan will be 
found convenient for priests who have to preach or speak 
on the Blessed Virgin. It will not be difficult for them to 
find, in such a variety of matter, what they are in quest of ; 
and since the division is already made, and the matter 
already in order, they can have no further trouble than to 
develop, a little more, the matter furnished them in these 
pages. For religious this book will fill a niche that has 
long been vacant. 

Bound in cloth and contains 384 pages: net, $1.00 



THE HOLY HOUSE OF LORETO 

A CRITICAL STUDY OF DOCUMENTS AND TRADITIONS 

BY THE 

RT. REV. ALEX. MACDONALD, D. D. 

Bishop of Victoria, B. C. 

" We have had frequent occasion to comment in these 
columns on the many-sided erudition, the trenchant logic, 
and the luminous exposition which characterize Bishop 
MacDonald's apologetic work generally, and have ex- 
pressed our appreciation of much of the material in the 
present volume. It will accordingly be sufficient to re- 
mind our readers that neither Canon Chevalier in his 
work, nor Father Thurston, in his article " Santa Casa," 
in the " Catholic Encyclopedia," has said the last word 
as to the authenticity of the Holy House. The book be- 
fore us cannot be disposed of by any supercilious assump- 
tion that " scholars no longer doubt that the Holy House 
is a pious fraud." — The Ave Maria. 

" Every lover of Our Lady and of tradition will wel- 
come Bishop MacDonald's work, which forms a powerful 
protest against the iconoclasm, which, under the name 
of scientific criticism, is attempting to destroy well- 
grounded traditions by arguments which are mere hy- 
potheses." — The Catholic Review. 

" Bishop MacDonald is an uncompromising defender of 
the ancient tradition concerning the Holy House of 
Loreto. He takes issue both with Father Thurston's 
views and with those of Canon Chevalier, on whose book 
Father Thurston evidently drew in the prepartion of his 
article. The points at issue are well set forth in Bishop 
MacDonald's book. The Holy House of Loreto." — 
The Catholic Educational Review. 

" Catholics all over the English-speaking world will hail 
with delight this masterful vindication of their devotion 
to Our Lady of Loreto. The learned Bishop in this book 



puts a quietus on those gentlemen who thought they had 
proven that the translation of the Holy House of Loreto 
was a myth." — The Western Catholic. 

" There is no doubt that the arguments which the 
learned Bishop marshals in defence of the Holy House, 
cannot be lightly set aside. All lovers of the venerable 
shrine of the Blessed Virgin will be thankful to tue Kt. 
Rev. Bishop for his vigorous and spirited defence, and 
even those who disagree with him on scientitic grounds, 
would do wrong to shut their eyes to the force and so- 
lidity of the arguments brought forward." — The Ec- 
clesiastical Review. 

" It has long been a pious tradition that the house the 
Holy Family lived in at Nazareth was miraculously trans- 
lated to Loreto. These pilgrimages have been made for 
centuries and wonders done by God's intervention and 
Our Lady's. Bishop MacDonald has, in a book of 400 
pages, vindicated the faith that is in him as to the 
reality of the Holy House of Loreto and at the same time 
completely routed Canon Chevalier's assertions to the 
contrary or doubt-castings on the pious belief of ages." — 
Catholic Register and Canadian Extension. 

" Bishop MacDonald's learned treatise, based on docu- 
mentary evidence as well as personal observation, in sup- 
port of the miraculous translation of the home of St. 
Joseph and the Blessed Virgin is highly interesting. 
This latest contribution to Marian literature can not fail 
to be very welcome and pleasing to devout clients of the 
Mother of God everywhere." — The Catholic Light. 

" Bishop MacDonald's study of the documents and 
traditions of Loreto, are wide and comprehensive. He is 
a firm believer in the history of the Holy House and his 
book is a thorough answer to the skeptics and modernists 
who are influenced by the hypercritical views of the day. 
To all interested in the sacred shrine the book will prove 
of very great interest." — The Tablet. 

" This History of the Holy House of Nazareth will be 
appreciated." — The Pittsburgh Catholic. 



When Canou Chevalier's " Notre-Dame de Lorette " ap- 
peared, every one pretending to be a " scholarly histor- 
ian " thought to justify his claim by shouting that Loreto 
was now as dead as a door-nail. 

One of their strongest points was that prior to the 
translation of the Holy House, no pilgrim to Nazareth 
seems to have mentioned it. To one who knows any- 
thing about the House to-day this appears at first sight 
decisive. Who could go to Loreto and not speak of the 
House standing up under the roof of the basilica? 
Similarly, who could have gone to Nazareth and have 
remained silent about the House? This probably gave 
the argument its force for Chevalier and his friends, 
who, strange as it may seem, never thought it worth 
while to visit either Nazareth or Loreto before planning 
their attack ; which, like the staff of a modern army, they 
developed far away from both places. Not so Bishop 
MacDonald. He was absolutely familiar with Nazareth 
and Loreto, visiting them more than once, though he did 
live across the Atlantic in Antigonish ; and he brings out 
the important fact that the House was in the crypt of 
the Nazareth Church, that it was in contact with the 
caves which with it formed the entire dwelling of the 
Holy Family, and that a very careful examination would 
have been required to distinguish it from them, Sec- 
ondly, he shows that before the translation pilgrims spoke 
of the house and the caves together as the Holy House, 
and. Thirdly, that since the time of the translation a part 
that was spoken of by thQ pilgrims no longer exists in 
Nazareth, and that its site was a place now vacant. 
Again, in dealing with Canon Chevalier's assumption that 
the Church of St. Mary in finido Laureti, existing before 
the date of translation, must be identified with the 
Holy House, he shows, following Father Eschbach, how 
impossible it is to establish any connection between the 
two. — America. 

My warmest congratulations for your scholarly and, 
in my view, successful defence of the beautiful and time- 
honored tradition of the angelic translation of the House 
of Nazareth. 

CARDINAL BEGIN, 

Quebec. 



A SERIES OF SMALL BOOKS FROM THE WRITINGS OF 

ST. ALPHONSUS LIGUORI, Edited by 
Rt. Rev. Alex. MacDonald, D.D. 

WAITING ON GOD, WALKING WITH GOD, 
TALKING WITH GOD, WORKING FOR GOD 

In neat and handy form these deeply devotional works 
are ready for the public. Bishop MacDonald has made a 
judicial selection of the most striking treatises on the 
love of God, the little books, well bound and cheap are 
suitable for visits to the Blessed Sacrament. Private Re- 
treats and special devotions, etc. They will be highly ap- 
preciated by both young and old. — Newark Monitor. 

These little books deal with the various phases of the 
spiritual life and point out the way to attain perfection. 
They can be used with profit for spiritual reading both by 
the laity and by religious. — Catholic Bulletin. 

These delightful and very helpful little works will prove 
veritable treasures to all who are honestly trying to save 
their souls. — Western Catholic. 

The subjects are well chosen and follow a natural se- 
quence, viz., Importance of Salvation, Eternity, Death, 
Hell, Love of Jesus, etc., etc. — The Catholic Times, Liver- 
pool, England. 

These are charming little works and will do much in 
promoting the greater glory of God. The Christian Press 
always make the book and the price with the intention of 
reaching the greater numbers. — The Tablet. 

Bishop MacDonald has in these neat and attractive little 
books gathered in a very small compass much of the very 
essence of the numerous writings of this great Doctor of 
the Church, and hence deserve a wide circulation. — The 
Exponent. 

Black Silk Cloth net .30 Seal, limp, gold edges net .50 

Genuine Morocco, gold roll, red under gold edges 

net .$1.00 postage extra 3c 

Christian Press Association 
Publishing Company 

26 BARCLAT STREET NEW YORK 




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